Lineage II
by ruth baulding
Summary: AU!Jedi Apprentice. A year or so has elapsed since the last time we saw our heroes. BOOK 2: In which master and apprentice investigate an evil brainwashing plot, attend a boisterous wedding, and battle the enemy within.
1. Chapter 1

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 1: Stirrings**

* * *

"Master Qui Gon said it was just a pretty rock."

Jedi Healer BenTo Li turned the beautiful, smooth stone in the light, holding it softly between thumb and forefinger. He snorted. "It's Force-sensitive. Pretty rock indeed. Such minerals are extremely rare. This one looks as though it has been polished by wind or water."

"He found it in the River of Light on his homeworld. A long time ago."

The healer raised one black and silver eyebrow. "Oh? The infamous Master Jinn has been carrying a pretty bauble around all this time? Tsk, tsk." He handed the stone back to its current owner, who closed his fingers around it and laid back against the medical cot's firm pillow.

"He _does_ have a fondness for strays," this young person said. "Everywhere we go he picks one up. So why not a stray rock?"

The healer stroked a hand along his thin moustaches and beard. "Does that make you his latest stray?" he asked.

The boy shrugged lightly and stared thoughtfully at the high, pale ceiling. "I don't think it's quite like that."

Master Li tapped one long finger against the boy's forehead. "Tell me everything you remember about this rock. What were you feeling while these Phindian _schuzzo _ tried out their memory-wipe droid?"

"What does _schuzzo _mean, master?"

"You answer first. Then I'll let you in on the secret."

The boy held the rock up before his eyes, turning it this way and that in the light. "I never saw the droid, actually," he said at last. "I knew they were coming, so I decided to…prepare, I suppose. I was holding the rock in my hand, like this-" he closed his fist around it, "- and I felt it warm to the touch. And I felt the Force pulse through it. That was marvelous, because I was…well, I was afraid…"

"That's not a matter of shame."

"Yes, master," the boy said, obviously not believing him. "But the stone let me touch the Force anyway. So I decided to build a _wall_ around my memories. Do you know? Like they taught us in the crèche for shielding, only deeper and stronger. Around everything."

"Did you feel desperate when you attempted this?"

"No. The rock was helping. Well, the Force just pooled around it, at least. I made this wall – around my memories, and then they came. And I remembered to hide the rock inside my tunic, but I didn't open my eyes because I was keeping focus. And I just held on while the droid was working."

"How long?"

"I don't remember." The young Jedi grinned. "Maybe they got that one."

Ben-To Li chuckled. "And you maintained this wall the entire time?"

"Yes - I think so. It _hurt_ rather a lot, and I think at the end, after they turned the droid off, maybe I might have, um, passed out…but I think the wall lasted. And I can remember everything, can't I?"

The healer folded his hands together. "You appear to be perfectly unharmed by the experience. Which is a great relief. You were very lucky to have your stone, I should say. You must thank Master Jinn for the gift."

"I will."

"Good. Now, of course, after all this time spent with me, you are quite tired."

"…not that weak-minded," the young Jedi muttered, groggily.

"No, you aren't. But you are still going to sleep now."

"…not…"

"That's quite right. You are exhausted."

"Wait…..master…"

The healer shook his head at the sheer obstinacy of his charge. But then, given the feat of mental resistance they had just been discussing, was it any wonder?

The boy couldn't even open his eyelids. "What's…._schuzzo?"_

Ben-To Li leaned forward and whispered in the boy's ear.

"….Oh," he said, with the faintest of smiles, and was instantly and deeply asleep.

* * *

Tahl scooped the pile of datachips and holobooks up and deposited them in a nearby armchair. "Enough," she commanded.

"The droids will have your head for that mess," Qui Gon Jinn informed her.

"_Your_ head, I should think. And if you wanted to find out about Offworld, you should have come to me. My information is superior to anything you'll be able to discover on your own."

"Ah." The tall Jedi master stretched out his long legs, his knees cracking loudly in the hushed labyrinth of the Archives. "But your asking price is too high. I've decided to pursue less demanding options. I do have a Padawan now. I might no longer require your services."

Tahl flicked the datareader's screen into standby mode and seated herself on the edge of the desk. "You are going to drag Obi Wan into this obsession?"

"No, I'm not. I've been telling him for months to keep his attention in the present moment. The last thing he needs is to worry about the past- much less someone else's past. This affair is my own."

"I wasn't aware you owned stock in Offworld," Tahl cracked.

Qui Gon stood to leave. "You know whom I mean."

She slipped into the doorway to effectively block his exit from the alcove. "He is gone, Qui. Why can't you let him go?"

The tall Jedi paused, giving his friend a thunderous look which had absolutely no effect.

"_He _ is gone, but his legacy is not. Offworld remains a highly lucrative mining corporation, even without his immediate guidance. Who _else_ is involved? For what is the company a _front?_ The last thing the galaxy needs is another crime syndicate on the scale of the Hutt mobs. I will certainly not permit such a thing to grow and spread, not when it has its roots in my own former pupil."

Tahl sighed. "You know better than this."

"Do I?" He pushed his way past, but gently. He turned again before departing. "Then I have much to unlearn."

Tahl watched him stride gracefully away, as self-assured and imperturbable as ever. Then she retrieved the pile of discarded records and went to find an archivist droid.

* * *

"He's unscathed, mentally speaking. Indeed, I should imagine the experience has if anything promoted a rare skill. You know he credits his resistance to that river rock you gave him."

Qui Gon Jinn smiled. "It is an ompholos stone. A conduit."

Master Li poured himself more tea. "Which is only a responsive, passive focal point. Of course your Padawan thinks the Force simply, quite inexplicably, happened to flow through the stone when he most needed it. Quite the naïf, that boy."

"He is very young, even for his age."

The healer pointed at Qui Gon. "Which you should keep in mind. I should have you called in for a mind-healing session. How you manage to land a child in a Phindian political prison, replete with illegal experimental instruments of torture, on his own, overnight, while you are busy staging an uprising, is beyond me. Irresponsible."

Qui Gon drank in silence. "I didn't land him there. He has a talent for trouble."

"Well? What do you expect? A boy like that is like the stone. They attract the Force – light and dark."

"Then it follows not that I should try to keep him out of trouble, as you seem to imply, but rather that I should teach him how to deal with it, since it seems inevitable."

Ben-To Li pursed his lips and set his cup down. "You likely should turn that stone into the Archives, at least for examination and cataloguing. It is a rare specimen."

"I know. "Qui Gon smiled widely. He spread his large hands. "But it's not mine to dispose of, so there's little I can do. Besides. I think this last incident proves that Obi Wan is meant to have it, at least until he outgrows such things."

"And just how long have you been carrying that piece of rock with you? Years? I wonder you didn't give it to your previous apprentice."

Qui Gon breathed out slowly. "I did," he said simply. "But Xanatos refused it. He saw it as a thing of no worth, and was insulted."

The memory was clear as the water which flowed over the shallow banks of the River of Light.

_Here, Xanatos. This is a wonderful thing. I want you to have it._

_A stone, master? Ha._

_I am not jesting, Padawan. Take it. It responds to the Living Force._

_The raven haired youth shook his head, demure yet unyielding. It's just a pretty rock, master. Are we done here yet?_

_And suddenly he was done. The water seemed less luminous, the air chill._

_Yes, we are done here. _

_And he slipped the wonderful stone into his own pocket, feeling its discovery was meant to be, and yet at a loss what to do now that the moment had shattered. _

_It stayed there for a long, long time._

"Well, it made a timely gift, certainly. You can come release him from the healer's wing this evening. Just have a care – such trauma can occasionally stir up dormant memories, incubate dreams and so forth – it's a possible side effect, though generally mild. If he suffers flashbacks or intense nightmares, you need to bring him back in."

"Thank you, Ben-To. I'm sure he'll be fine."

* * *

"I'm famished, master."

"When are you not, Obi Wan?"

They stopped at the refectory on the second level, where a disgruntled droid ladled some generous remnant of tonight's stew into a bowl, and jabbed a blunt finger in the direction of a counter where bread still filled the bottom of a large serving dish.

"Leftovers," the boy grumbled, helping himself to four large pieces of a slightly stale loaf and calling an abandoned muja fruit into his hand with a tiny nudge of the Force.

"Obi Wan." Frivolous uses were strongly discouraged.

"I'm sorry, master." They moved toward a table and sat down, by which time half the muja had already disappeared. Qui Gon reached out an arm and confiscated the sticky-sweet fruit.

"Ben-To was sad to see you go," he remarked, as Obi Wan laid into the stew and bread with ravenous grace. "Though I can't imagine what the appeal might be."

The Padawan swallowed, shrugged, relished his next three mouthfuls without a word of reply. He paused between the third and fourth. "My brilliant conversation," he grunted laconically, promptly carrying on with his absorbing task.

"Hm," Qui Gon snorted, watching the boy polish off his enormous meal with an unembarrassed enthusiasm suggestive of another impending growth spurt.

"Better," the young Jedi sighed when not a crumb or a drop remained. Qui Gon returned the muja, and they proceeded back to the main concourse, its broad tiled floor softly reflecting the lights, muted to a soft evening glow. Robed figures passed them here and there. The nighttime hush absorbed their footfalls, the whisper of their cloaks as they walked.

Stairs and a side corridor carried them toward the residents' wing. "Master?"

"Don't tell me you're hungry again. The Temple won't be able to sustain the burden of feeding you."

"The stone you gave me on my life-day. I was speaking about it with Master Li. It's _not_ just a pretty rock, is it?"

Qui Gon smiled, pondering the best answer. "For anyone but you, Obi Wan, I think it would be." They reached the door to their quarters. He waved it open.

"Frivolous," his apprentice teased him.

The tall master raised an eyebrow.

"Here. I want you to have this," Obi Wan smirked, as he slipped through the doorframe past his mentor.

Qui Gon reflexively opened his palm to receive the small gift deposited there… and then favored his Padawan with a puzzled frown. "And what is the meaning of this?"

The boy swaggered across the common room toward the balcony, not even looking over his shoulder. "For anyone except you, my master, it would be just a pretty rock."

It was the muja pit.

* * *

"There's more to this than money. I can feel it."

They strolled along the third-level concourse, gazing down on one of the central halls from a colonnaded balcony. Students and masters scurried hither and thither below. It was well past the noon-hour.

"Power," Tahl decided. "Connections. To all the most influential and least scrupulous businessmen and corporate interests in the galaxy. It's a networking gambit."

"But that comes down to money again. He isn't interested in money, not in that way. You don't know him as well as I do."

"Qui," Tahl said impatiently, "It's _political."_

The tall Jedi's face twisted briefly.

"You know there have been increased rumors of an incipient secessionist movement. That means money and connections. And you know I'm right."

Qui Gon stopped abruptly and leaned over the balcony railing. His hands tightened on the curving rim. "That's an act of treason," he said slowly. "Not so much the Dark side."

Tahl's expressive eyebrows inched upwards. "Some might equate the two."

"But not everyone." He smoothed his ruffled thoughts into order. Offworld. Secessionist oragnization, under economic protection. Trade Federation. Xanatos. It was an ingredient list for the most obscene conspiracy theory ever concocted in the mind of a sentient being, bricks for the fabrication of a delusional card-house. He snorted at his own folly; the Force told him nothing, only flowed on in its placid currents. But then, his gift did not lie with Unifying vision.

He would have to ask Dooku.

Tahl peered at him sideways and quirked her full lips into a faintly mocking smile.

"Keep your mind on the present moment, Qui."

"I am. I'm going to watch Obi Wan's saber class now."

They parted ways, but the surreal after-image of his suspicions haunted him all the way down to the student dojo.

* * *

The Padawans were blindfolded this afternoon.

"Begin." Cin Drallig's baritone rang even in the lofty roof girders. The dissonant clash of training sabers ground against the audience's eardrums. Qui Gon folded his arms and observed carefully.

The others in the high balcony leaned forward, in rapt admiration. Except one.

"Ataru form dueling can be needlessly aggressive," Adi Gallia commented, her piercing azure gaze narrowing as a slender blonde was hammered down beneath a spiralling blow delivered by a foe sailing in a neat backflip over her head. The girl was felled, sprawling on the mat. The victor spun to dodge another strike and joined with the next attacker, seamlessly, in a fluid dance. And then the next, and the next, rolling, turning, leaping, twisting, a wild sprite in cream tunics, a dervish bearing a blade of light.

"And effective," Qui Gon added, neutrally.

"It's too demanding. That style can't be maintained long in a real combat situation," the regal council member declared, her headdress' ornamented tails brushing over her shoulders as she straightened.

"I've seen it employed quite successfully by my Padawan."

Adi's face hardened. "With _you_ covering his back. It's just showmanship. No substance."

"Saber style bespeaks inner truth, Adi. Not all of us are staid and unimaginative."

She projected a shockingly ferocious thought, and he feigned indifference.

"May the Force be with you, Jinn. It looks as though my Padawan needs bacta for a burn – delivered by your _acrobat."_

He bowed deeply as she left, elegant bearing proclaiming nothing of the irritation simmering beneath the surface. Qui Gon chuckled very quietly to himself.

* * *

Obi Wan looked up at him expectantly. "Did you see Siri go down –"

"Padawan." Gloating was both natural and inappropriate. "I saw your success; not the failure of others."

The boy was still emanating delight at the mental picture of Padawan Tachi tumbling to the floor beneath his brilliant offensive, a joyful combative rivalry that only thinly veiled more inchoate feelings, infant stirrings of something else.. Qui Gon sighed. "Are you tired?"

"And starving."

There had been a great deal of talk about Padawan Tachi lately. "Two laps around the Temple perimeter. Now, before evening meal."

Obi Wan's sharp inhalation was an embryonic gasp of protest, but more than a year as Qui Gon's apprentice had banked his inner fires into something useful, a forge hammering raw impudence into steel nerve. He clamped his mouth shut and gazed at the Jedi master with burning eyes, ones that mingled present hurt and a promise of playful future retribution.

"Off you go." It wasn't a punishment, though the boy likely interpreted it as such. But Qui Gon remembered what havoc untamed adolescent hormones could wreak on one's focus. Better an exhausted Padawan than a distracted one.

"Yes, master." Obi Wan trudged away to work off some of that abundant…energy… of his, and Qui Gon tactfully avoided Adi and her apprentice on the way out.

* * *

Dooku wasn't in the Temple, or even on the planet.

"His assignment is sensitive," Mace confided in Qui Gon. "It concerns the next Chancellior election. I can't say more. Was the matter urgent?"

Qui Gon pondered this. "No," he decided. "I'll speak with him when he returns."

Mace led the way through the towering arcades of rigidly trimmed junta trees in the outdoor garden, their shadows barring the gravel path ahead in stark delineation, purple dusk laid upon glaring white stone. Coruscant's sun wept its way down the eastern ridge of the sky toward night.

"Qui Gon," the Korun Jedi murmured after a pause in which their measured strides beat a soft dirge upon the groomed walkway, "I wanted to speak to you about Phindar and Gala."

A warm breeze, tainted with speeder emissions and the nameless ash form far-flung industrial sectors rose and toyed with their cloak hems, lifted strands of Qui Gons' hair in its oily fingers. The sunlight faded, and the shadows deepened to solid walls of black, barriers slashing across the path. Mace plowed through the veils of darkness without flinching, his gaze turned up to the diffuse ambience of the heavens, where specks of traffic streamed their orderly way across the planet's duracrete horizons.

"Something I left out of the Council report?" Qui Gon asked.

"No. A personal misgiving." Mace paused in the very center of the ancient garden, where the sentinel trees stood like so many pillars of green flame, pointing upward parallel to the Temple's spires. "That mind-wipe droid the Syndicat had on Phindar," the dark skinned master said slowly. "That's a prototype design known only to …certain interests. We've had Shadows tracking down its possible places of manufacture for years without success. It was the will of the Force that you discovered it. But on _Phindar _of all places. It makes no sense."

Qui Gon's eyes ascended the confident boughs of the junta, the limbs always thrown heavenward, reaching past the material plane to the realm of distant purpose. "I know," he muttered. 'There is something connecting the points of darkness in the galaxy, Mace. A unifying factor that hasn't been there before."

The other Jedi nodded. "I feel it too," he murmured. "Is this what you wished to speak to Yan about?"

"In some way, yes."

Mace reached out a strong hand and grasped his arm. "You have a young light to nurture, Qui Gon. Let the Council bear the burden of this coming time, at least for now."

There was only friendship in the offer. Qui Gon remembered why he loved this man, his childhood playmate, this unquenchable fire in the Force.. They watched the sun die, and then turned their steps back to the Temple's doors, from which golden shafts of effulgence still spilled, unsullied and pure.

* * *

When he returned to quarters late that evening, Obi Wan was already asleep, fully clothed and stretched out with a kind of elegant abandon upon his sleep couch in the smaller bedroom. An active datareader blinked forlornly up at Qui Gon from the floor, where it had landed after slipping from lax fingers.

He placed the object on its shelf and shifted some of the boy's sprawling limbs into a more comfortable position before dousing the lights with a flick of his fingers and sliding the door _halfway_ closed.

Sleep and Obi Wan were uneasy friends, at the best of times. It was good to see such rare amity settled in the confines of these rooms. He turned his steps toward his own bed and surrendered to the quiet himself. He dreamed of the River of Light, where he had found the omphalos stone, and flowed down its sinuous, coruscating length until dawn.

* * *

The next day they received a holomessage from Guerra Derrida.

"Obawan! Jedi Gon! My dear friends, terrible news from Phindar…not so, I lie! Paxxi has given up the life of unstealing and is getting married. Yes, it is so! I do not lie. We are inviting you to the celebrations, but only if you bring many expensive gifts… not so, I lie! Paxxi and I would love to see you there. True fact."

When the shimmering image of their ebullient Phindian acquaintance had faded into thin air above the projector, Obi Wan looked hopefully up at his teacher's face.

"We cannot make a special trip all the way to Phindar for a wedding, Padawan," Qui Gon broke the news gently. "Though we will of course send our felicitations. Perhaps you can speak to Paxxi and his bride personally."

"What about a gift?" the boy wanted to know.

He shook his head. "We have nothing to give, of material value. The Derridas know this – you should not fret over it.

Obi Wan's mouth thinned into a pensive line. Qui Gon smiled a little. "I said not to fret over it."

"But Guerra's feelings will be hurt."

"Ah. But that means you must practice your diplomatic skills when you politely and regretfully decline the invitation."

"Yes, master."

"Besides," the Jedi master continued, lightly. "Are you truly so eager to return to Phindar? That is a strange kind of nostalgia, Padawan."

It was a mere jest, but the boy's eyes were hard, lit with a blue flame like a saber's pure blade. "It's not nostalgia," he told Qui Gon eagerly. "I _should_ go back, to face my fear. I realized that in meditation today."

Qui Gon nodded. "Ah. But fear is not in a place. You carry it in here." He tapped his apprentice's chest. "You don't need to set foot on Phindar to grapple with its memory."

It was Obi Wan's turn to nod. He thought this over, carefully, the familiar line deepening between his brows.

"I sense that something else lies behind this, Obi Wan."

The young Jedi squirmed. "I… master, I would like to go to Ilum. To look for a saber crystal."

The tall man exhaled slowly. Yes, he should have seen that coming. "Obi Wan," he replied carefully, "Ilum is a dangerous place. There are other ways to find a crystal. There are other ways to build your first –"

"Ilum is _traditional."_ Obi Wan insisted, as though this trumped all arguments. "And I'm supposed to go there, anyway." And this last bit as though there _were_ no argument. "I know about the cave of visions. That's why I need to face Phindar first. I was afraid, so I have to –"

"Padawan." Disappointment was already leaching some of the high color from the boy's cheeks, wilting his youthful bloom of determination. But something remained in the background, burning steadily in the Force, a beacon flame atop a cold mountain, a clear signal to those who could see. _He's right, blast it._

"…Master?"

"Your path may take you through Ilum's caves," Qui Gon grudgingly admitted. That was a lonely path, a bleak one. "But you will not run headlong into those caverns without preparation or guidance."

The boy bowed his head. "No, I won't. I'm sorry. I promise I will heed your counsel." These were renewed vows, reminders of the oaths binding them as teacher and student.

"Very well." He should not give any concession, he should be content with obedience… but his heart was as maverick as the rest of him. "And I shall give consideration to the matter of Paxxi's wedding."

And the look of gratitude he received in reply was enough to confirm him in such rebellion for the remainder of his days.


	2. Chapter 2

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 2: Stormclouds**

* * *

"No, no, no, _nooooooooo_!"

Qui Gon Jinn had never suffered from nightmares: not as a youngling, not as a young man, not as an experienced Knight. Perhaps the Living Force, which he loved so well, shielded him from such ruthless afflictions, or perhaps he simply lived so intensely in the present moment that there remained no chink of apprehension or regret through which unconscious terrors might creep. But certainly, since taking his third Padawan, nightmares had become a routine part of his life. He simply suffered them vicariously now.

The mind healers had been explicit in their instructions. Wake the boy up, bring the subject of vision or dream to conscious focus, separate Force perception from imagination and memory, analyze both portions, no coddling or indulgence in emotion, and back to sleep – with help if necessary.

They were both used to it by now.

"Wake up. Obi Wan. Now."

He had learned to affect indifference. It spared his Padawan some mortification. Any show of sympathy would spark deep embarrassment. He kept his back turned, to allow the boy a moment to regain his composure.

"Phindar? Telos? Mixo Asaro again?" he asked after a short pause.

"No," Obi Wan croaked. "I… I don't know. It was different."

"What do you remember? Quickly. Before it fades."

"I'm tired, master. It wasn't important. I'll go back to sleep now."

He turned. "It's about me, isn't it?"

Obi Wan bolted upright. "_No."_

Qui Gon gently seized his arm. "Do not lie to me, Padawan."

"It was a _dream. _I don't want to talk about it!"

"It was a vision."

Obi Wan twisted, and Qui Gon grabbed the other arm, pinning him in place with careful strength. "You know this must be faced. Now tell me. That's an order."

Corrosive fear leaked over their bond. Obi Wan shuddered. "You die," he ground out. "The same as Mixo Asaro. And I'm not there to help."

Nightmare – or premonition - was an ill-mannered guest, which often overstayed its welcome. In the end, neither of them slept any more that night. They drank tea, and meditated, and kept quiet vigil until dawn. And when morning came, they turned their attention to the present moment, where it belonged.

* * *

"Obi Wan!"

It had been almost a year; an eternity, for two fourteen year old boys. They embraced – a rough tussling of limbs, almost a combative collision, causing two or three older Padawans to look askance at the public display of affection – or hostility – erupting outside the dining hall.

"Garen! You're back. It's good to see you." They stepped apart, perhaps a bit self consciously. Garen's eyes rested on his friend's braid, approvingly.

"I'm only here a few days. Master Tinn is taking us out over Vandor for more training… but it's good to be home." Garen Muln's grey eyes raked over the ceiling, the colonnades supporting the vast hall to their left, the polished floors. "So sick of hangar decks and lubricant slicks. And astromech droids…. Stars, I want to play scramball with'em sometimes."

"Are you free, then? I have a free afternoon. We could perhaps find an empty dojo. Or, failing that, we might convince Ali Alaan to let us _help_ with the younglings."

Garen's grey eyes sparked with enthusiasm at the prospect of an un-refereed sparring session or wrestling match. "Fine. But… what about you?" he added, suspiciously. "Aren't you otherwise occupied?'

"I'm studying for a Diplomacy exam as we speak," Obi Wan grinned.

His friend crossed his arms and rose obligingly to the bait. "Which, in your arrogance, you are confident of passing with flying colors?"

Obi Wan feigned hurt. "You do me no justice, Garen. I was able to persuade Master Leem that I should be credited with field experience in lieu of the exam, and she quite sensibly agreed."

"You _talked_ your way out of taking the final?" Garen Muln was indignant.

"It _is_ a Diplomacy exam, Garen. A far more useful skill than flying, which is something any astromech can manage. Even with a loose wire."

"That's it. I'm going to kick your haughty diplomatic a–" His taunt came to a screeching halt as a stern master passed by. The two boys bowed deeply and exchanged a burning look.

"Let's go." And go they did.

* * *

"Where has that boy got himself off to?"

Tahl filched the comlink from his loosening fingers and flicked it to standby. "He'll contact you when he's able. He hasn't left the Temple or found any real trouble, Qui."

The tall man sighed and stood to stretch, his fingertips brushing the low ceiling of the Archives' lower level, where the droids and the individual study and research cubicles were located. "I'm going to start asking uncomfortable questions," he decided. "Telos has its fingers in too many interplanetary trade franchises. There are senators and representatives right here on Coruscant who doubtlessly know more than they should."

"A politician who knows _more_ than he should?" Tahl looked pained. "Your wits are deteriorating with age."

He ducked beneath the low doorframe and led the way past the Research Droids, busily cataloguing and sorting the artifacts of ten thousand known civilizations. "In a Republic as large as ours, information is as slippery as power. Perhaps more so. It is concentrated in strange pockets, conspiracies and alliances of knowledge. In the end, those connections are more important than mere wealth and influence."

Tahl waved open the far doors. "No wonder your Padawan has gone incommunicado. He's averse to enduring your lectures."

That made him laugh. On the inside, of course- but Tahl felt it anyway. "Obi Wan prefers to attend carefully, then fastidiously dissect every minute flaw in reasoning. I have a captive audience."

"Well, you certainly provide ample fallacies for analysis."

Beneath the towering rows of holobooks in the upper levels, he paused to try the comlink again. No answer.

"Stop fretting over your chick," Tahl advised, striding ahead on her own errand.

But she hadn't been there for the recurrent visions, the last week of haunted nights. He shoved the unresponsive comlink back in its pouch and went to hunt down his apprentice in person.

* * *

Qui Gon finally tracked the boy down in the younglings' gymansium. Obi Wan's comlink bleeped insistently amidst a pile of discarded garments along one wall. Ali Alaan was watching the proceedings calmly, posted along the sidelines of a rather vigorous and undisciplined game erupting in the wide and echoing space. He held up a hand in some referee signal and then turned to smile at Qui Gon.

"The younglings love having the older students play with them," he said.

Qui Gon peered at the chaotic melee within the gymnasium, recognizing Garen Muln and his own apprentice easily, as either boy towered over the six and eight year olds gamboling about the polished floors. A hover-ball ricocheted wildly through the air, propelled by the Force in every which direction, an unpredictable and nearly uncontrollable projectile. To the Jedi master's discerning eye, the game appeared to have devolved from any recognizable sport into some kind of pitched battle, a dodge-ball match in which the two principle opponents were pitted against each other, each with a gaggle of adoring teammates jumping, shouting, cheering them on and generally getting underfoot.

Qui Gon snorted. "You call this education?"

Ali smiled benignly, watching the increasingly fierce match unfold. Delighted shrieks echoed off the high raftered roof; both older Padawans were soaked in perspiration and grinning ear to ear, engaged in extraordinary acrobatics as they vied to pummel one another with the hover-ball. Their smaller comrades spent most their time imitating the older boys' leaps and twisting dodges, some of them positively giddy with enjoyment.

"They'll sleep well tonight," Ali observed placidly, enjoying the spectacle almost as much as his innocent charges.

The contest ended in bitter defeat. Garen Muln, abandoning honor in favor of victory, ordered his minions to assault the other Padawan; Obi Wan, unwilling to harm the tiny younglings, went down and was pinned beneath the combined weight of fifteen small but solid bodies; whereupon his friend strolled casually forward and slammed the hovering ball into his foe's midriff with a decisive _thwack_ of conquest.

The clan members screamed in childish delight, clapped and laughed and performed a few celebratory travelling backflips. Ali Alaan clapped his hands once and signaled them to line up. Garen Muln offered a hand up to a laughing and gasping Obi Wan. Qui Gon waited as they pantingly approached, his face carefully schooled into mild disapprobation.

"Master," his apprentice wheezed, conveniently morphing his doubled-over posture into a respectful bow.

Garen Muln lingered nearby, looking a bit nervous. As he should, Qui Gon decided.

Ali Alaan shepherded his deliriously happy clan toward the changing rooms, winking at Qui Gon over one broad shoulder.

"I was under the impression there is an extensive Diplomacy examination tomorrow morning," Qui Gon said to the disheveled pair.

"Yes, master," Obi Wan answered, some of the untamed energy of the game ebbing away, "But Master Leem has –"

"I am aware of the _arrangement_ you made with Master Leem," the tall Jedi interrupted. "But had you thought to devote your considerable talent to helping your peers? I believe Bant Eerin would benefit from your tutoring in the subject. It would be a fitting use of your time."

His Padawan flushed guiltily. "No, master, I hadn't thought of it.. But I will do so now, with your permission."

He nodded. "Freshen up, go make yourself _useful_ to others, and then meet me after evening meal. We have an appointment in the Legislative District."

Garen Muln wisely kept his mouth shut and included himself in the tall master's censure. Qui Gon watched the pair of boys hastily disappear in the direction of the showers, and managed not to chuckle aloud until they were out of hearing range.

_Ah, childhood._

* * *

"Who is this politician we are meeting, master?"

The air taxi had an enclosed back seat. Obi Wan stared disapprovingly through the transparisteel canopy at the streams of frenetic traffic weaving around them in every direction.

"Senator Valorum is the elected representative of the Mid-Rim Selosian Trivirate, comprised of seventeen systems in three distinct sectors. Telos is one of his constituency. He is also a man with many years' political experience, of an old and wealthy family line, and one of the popular candidates for the next Chancellior election."

"Oh. And he knows you personally?"

Qui Gon cocked his head to one side. "That is his understanding of the relationship. And you will do nothing to disabuse him of the notion. Am I understood?"

Of, course, master," Obi Wan assured him, still watching traffic.

Qui Gon noted that the boy's posture was an unconscious mirror of his own "I told him my Padawan was a model of circumspection," he added, sternly.

Obi Wan finally turned his attention from the chaotic air traffic in order to favor his teacher with a droll look. "I shall be seen and not heard," he said.

"That will make a pleasant change."

* * *

The promised meeting was even longer and more tedious than anticipated, and three hours later Qui Gon felt he had learned nothing of significance, communicated nothing effectively, and gained no headway in his discreet investigation.

"A frustrating interview," he confessed to his apprentice on the return journey.

"You should try being quiet next time," Obi Wan advised. "I recommend it highly, from personal experience."

"I hope you at least had an opportunity to practice your Force perception."

"Of course, master."

"Tell me what you recall. We'll compare notes."

A tiny shrug, as though if indifference – a gesture which to Qui Gon's knowing eye heralded mischief ahead. "The secretary was anxious – a financial or professional matter, I think. The aides in the antechamber were gossiping rather than working. The assistant is ambitious but cowardly. The three people waiting in the lobby were angry with the Senator. One of them was also afraid of the other two. There had been a powerful person in the office earlier. The Senator was tired, and preoccupied with something happening this evening. He pretended to dismiss your words, but was inwardly confused and dismayed."

Qui Gon nodded in warm approval "Excellent. You missed nothing."

"I'm not done, master," the boy said innocently. The tall Jedi braced himself. "I also noticed that the legislative intern was extremely distracted during the interview."

"Indeed? Perhaps she found the subject matter obscure or irrelevant? Telosian business interests and planetary spending budgets are not vastly entertaining topics."

"Perhaps. But I sensed that her attention was focused on you. "

"Ah, yes. I noticed the same thing. But there is nothing we can do about such situations. I shielded my awareness from her presence."

Obi Wan nodded, but his eyes were twinkling. "I see. That was wise. She kept projecting a certain image or phrase, which I couldn't understand."

Qui Gon resigned himself to the inevitable and waited for the killing blow.

"Master…what exactly is a _scruffy-duff stud muffin?"_

Even Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn could not entirely control the heat rising in his face. He gazed very steadily and stonily ahead, while Obi Wan looked very, very blandly out the viewport. "I have no idea," he replied.

* * *

But nightmare was not yet through with them.

"Obi Wan, where do you think you are going?"

The boy halted halfway to the door, the dark room not disguising his somewhat guilty start. "I'm sorry, master. I didn't mean to disturb you … I was going to step out for a moment –"

"Obi Wan."

"Nowhere, master. Just.. for a walk.." It was second chime past midnight.

Qui Gon rose from his meditation cushion and joined the boy. "I felt a disturbance. You've had another vision."

The boy exhaled, a vexed acceptance of the inevitable. "Yes, master."

"Well?" Since when did a simple conversation involve pulling teeth one by one? He preferred impudent Obi Wan, whose torrent of irreverent wit had to be curbed and suppressed, to this brooding and reserved one, who would give up each thought or feeling only at saber point.

"I need to go, master – just to … I have to go."

The Jedi master frowned over the stuttering ineloquence of this revelation. His Padawan was deeply disturbed. "Why? What did you see?"

A hiss of indrawn breath. A surge of resentment across their bond. The swish of a cloak impatiently drawn across taut shoulders. "May I please just go, master? This one time."

The words were polite, but temper sparked beneath the surface.

"First you will obey me, and then you shall have your way."

"Then I _shan't_ have my way." And with that, the boy turned on his heel and stormed darkly into his own bedroom again.

Perhaps impudent was not so charming after all. He crossed the space in three long strides, filling the small doorframe. "You can tell me now, or you can tell the healers."

"I'm not going to the healers, either."

Qui Gon's own temper stirred perilously close to the surface. He let his disapproval radiate openly, felt the boy's answering trumpet-blast of defiance flare bright in the Force. He stepped into the room, violating the unspoken boundary, and loomed over his apprentice, hands resting on hips. "You would do better not to speak to your master in that tone," he warned.

"A moment ago I was to speak more, not less," the boy snapped impertinently.

"Self-assurance will not spare you the consequences of disobedience," Qui Gon fumed.

"Threats will not earn you the courtesy of obedience," Obi Wan shot back, his voice thrumming in a more mature octave, a promise of the man to come, a growling tenor reminiscent of a saber's hot blade.

"Mind your tongue, Padawan!" For a brief moment Qui Gon regretted that corporal chastisement was strictly forbidden – he would in a heartbeat have flung the insolent brat over one knee and let him _feel_ who was the master here, never mind that the cheeky whelp was fourteen standard- but instead he merely projected the image and the undeniably fierce pleasure he derived from it for one burning instant before banishing the thought entirely.

He felt Obi Wan's heart skip a beat, but the boy stood up straight, facing him squarely despite the dizzying whirl of emotion this inspired, and Qui Gon was absurdly _proud_ of him for the sheer Jedi strength of his resolve.

"Yes, _Master," _the boy ground out, chest heaving, the word spat out like the vilest Huttese curse, yet strangely edged with so many layers of helpless appeal and pain that it transformed to a silent scream of _help,_ an infant wail of distress in the Force.

Qui Gon put aside his anger. Center. The Force. He was the guide, the teacher, not the animal tamer at the Coruscant Circus. Breathe. He raised a hand, and his Padawan flinched…. but there came no slap, only a gentle touch across a hot cheek. "Obi Wan. This is foolish. On both our parts."

Anger melted into shame and sorrow, defiance bled its life out and expired, resentment faded away into bitter contrition. Obi Wan was sliding onto one knee, head bowed. "I- forgive me, master. Please. I –I-I.."

"No." Qui Gon hauled him up, maneuvered them both onto the edge of the low sleep mattress, until they sat side by side. He gripped the boy's knee. "Hush. Just tell me what you saw in the vision."

He had to decode the mumble of words, as the Padawan buried his face in his hands. "The Temple – there is an intruder. And , and… everyone is dead. All the younglings, the elders, everyone. And it's burning. And I'm not there to help. I couldn't do a thing." The horrific confession hiccupped and rasped its way into incoherence. Qui Gon sat stunned, forgiving all that had gone before.

He kneaded a rigid shoulder muscle. "I'm sorry," the Jedi master said. "You must release it into the Force."

His Padawan looked up at him, helplessly. "Why do they keep coming?"

But he had no answer, and no comfort to give beyond that of a broad shoulder clothed in rough-woven fiber. Thankfully, it seemed to be enough for the moment.

* * *

"Siri's quite aggravated because she only scored _satisfactory_ on the Diplomacy exam, while you got full credit without even taking it."

Obi Wan wolfed down the remainder of his breakfast and watched Padawan Tachi's scowling progress across the opposite end of the refectory.

"If looks could kill," Garen Muln continued detachedly, "You would already be laid out on your funeral pyre, my friend."

"If looks could kill, Garen, you would have to assiduously avoid mirrors or other highly polished surfaces."

Padawan Tachi's smoldering blue eyes seared a challenging line across the room, setting the Force alight with her affront. Obi Wan felt the muscles across his belly tauten.

"She's going to have your head in the dojo today," Garen idly observed. "I can't wait to see it happen."

Oddly enough, Obi Wan couldn't wait, either.

* * *

Mace's dark eyes were inscrutable, liquid pools of solemnity. "The Council, after much deliberation, has agreed the matter should be referred to the Sentinels."

Qui Gon's cloak brushed the polished mosaic floor as he shifted in place. "I see."

Beside Mace, Yoda stirred, clearing his throat in a rumbling undertone. "Dark, I sense behind this Syndicat. More than appears on the surface, was there at work on Phindar."

The tall master inclined his head. "Indeed." He hesitated. "Master Dooku is not on-planet. Shall I meet with Master Dyas instead?"

Adi and Ki Adi exchanged a look… a flicker of guilt wafted across the space, carried on the subtle currents of the Living Force. Qui Gon's spine rammed into protective rigidity. "Obi Wan is-"

"The Sentinels need to speak to him, Qui Gon," Mace interrupted. "He was the only witness to the actual operation of that mind-wipe droid. And the investigation must begin from the the Syndicat's technology. That machine may be our link to whatever power lies behind the local disturbance."

Qui Gon's mouth thinned. His gaze strayed from his friend's apologetic but unyielding face to that of Yoda. The ancient troll regarded him with half-hooded eyes, ones that saw far too much.

"Duty, Master Jinn. Learn this all Jedi must, in time. Speak with Master Dyas, your Padawan will."

He had no choice in the matter. At least it was not Dooku. With a sigh, Qui Gon made his bow. "Yes, master."

* * *

"Stop fidgeting, Padawan, or it _will_ be the healers."

For a blow delivered by a training 'saber, the burn was severe – a bright swath of indignation slashing across upper arm, shoulder blade, and spine. Qui Gon rubbed in the salve –a traditional remedy of the Nautolan people, something frowned upon by most Core-world medics but secretly coveted and utilized by more than one bounty hunter, athlete, mercenary soldier – and Jedi Knight. It was highly effective, and stung like a swarm of enraged drazz hornets.

Obi Wan's mouth was clamped shut in stoic fortitude, so Qui Gon decided to avail himself of the opportunity for uninterrupted _instruction. _"If you let Padawan Tachi past your guard like that again, I expect to find you branded like a nerf. And in such an eventuality, it might be fitting consequence to permit you to bear the scar for life."

His apprentice's shoulders tensed in objection, but the master ploughed on. "Something tells me the dojo was inappropriately used for the arbitration of personal disputes," he mused. "I assume Master Drallig has already delivered a stern lecture to both parties involved?"

"Yes, master, I – _ah!"_

"Sorry." Qui Gon pressed the remainder of the gauze bandaging in place and surveyed his handiwork. "Though it's well deserved."

"Yes, master…. Have you given any more consideration to the idea of attending Paxxi's wedding? We should make flight arrangements if we are to go. With your permission."

The tall man sighed in half-amused vexation. The boy was tenacious in pursuing his various agendas, and not above using one point of debate to distract his mentor from another less comfortable topic. "I should deprive you of the opportunity as punishment for brash and unbecoming conduct in the salles," he pointed out.

"That would presume I was not, in fact, the _victim,"_ Obi Wan countered, wryly. "And I sense that you've already made up your mind."

"I could change it."

"You would never set such an example of fickle irresolution, master. I trust you implicitly to set a firm example."

_Brat_. "I'll set you a firm example," he warned, tugging the Padawan's braid. "One you won't soon forget. But yes, I think we shall attend the festivities on Phindar."

Obi Wan turned to face him, joyful enthusiasm tumbling and cavorting in the Force. "Thank you, master," he bowed, outwardly grave.

A thought strayed across Qui Gon's mind. "Have you ever _been_ to a wedding, Obi Wan? Have you any idea what's involved?"

"Ah… no? Do they have _fermis_ at the banquet afterwards, as they do on Vetruvia?"

The tall man chuckled. "You certainly won't be getting anywhere near it if they do, Padawan." He raised a finger. "However, before we discuss travel arrangements, there is an obligation you must fulfill." Duty came first, always, no matter the circumstance, no matter the Jedi's relative innocence. And he could not delay the moment any longer.

The boy waited, open face radiating trust, a complete lack of suspicion about what was to come. Qui Gon's breath caught, but …._duty._

"The Council has requested," – _commanded- "_ That you speak to Master Dyas about your experiences on Phindar."

The Padawan frowned a little, still not grasping the implications. "Master Dyas? The Sentinels? About Phindar?"

"Yes."

The young Jedi was very perceptive, attuned to the Unifying Force, to the future... but this was outside his purview. He looked merely bemused. "Of course, master. When?"

Qui Gon's gut twisted. "Tomorrow. And then we will arrange a transport for Phindar."

Obi Wan beamed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 3: Thunder**

* * *

"Ah, Padawan. Come in."

Morning sunlight filtered through the angled window-shades, emblazoning the pale ceiling in stark bands of white and grey, while the floor and the meditation cushions arranged neatly in the center of the small chamber were swathed in shadow. There were, in fact, _three_ people in the room, and Obi Wan started badly when he perceived this – for he had only sensed _one_ in the Force.

"Don't' be alarmed, child," the soft-voiced master said. "Come and sit with us, here."

_Child?_ Since gross exaggeration seemed to be the chosen currency of exchange, he thought he might fairly consider the man sitting before him to be a decrepit relic – older than Qui Gon, anyway, but very different in his presence. Master Syfo-Dyas was merely tall where Qui Gon was tall and broad; and his coiled energy had a sharp edge to it, an alacrity of intelligence that bordered on inherent hostility. The older Jedi's features were refined, his eyes deep but not crinkled at the edges with laughter. He emanated authority without playfulness, experience without vestigial wonder. His gaze was star-bright: clear, unforgiving, unmitigated, unfiltered. _Alarming _ would, in fact, be a keen description.

Obi Wan decided that he would _not_ be alarmed. "Yes, Master," he answered, and promptly folded himself onto the rounded pad closest to this strange Jedi, raising his eyebrows at the silent pair who waited in the background, _with their hoods raised,_ as though they were but statues in the Temple's grand foyer. "Hello there," he greeted them airily.

He was rewarded with a fleeting ripple of … _disapproval?_ … in the Force, and returned his attention to the man directly in front of him.

Master Syfo-Dyas studied him intently. "I've asked them to attend as anonymous witnesses to this interview," he explained. "Don't be disturbed by their presence."

"It seems to be rather the other way around," he said flatly, eliciting another – more palpable – flash of annoyance from at least one of the seated figures. He favored this person with a tight smile, just a one-sided twitch of his mouth and a triumphant arch of his eyebrow. Take that, Anonymous.

Syfo Dyas interlaced his fingers thoughtfully, ignoring the byplay. "I'm sure some of our ways seem confusing to one of your age," he said smoothly, half addressing the Jedi behind him, half conveying to the Padawan a compassion cut heavily with condescension.

Obi Wan's gut clenched., as it so often did in the presence of healers, or on the rare occasion of a freefall drop from three hundred meters. "I came here to answer questions about Phindar and the Syndicat," he asserted, directly.

Syfo-Dyas' stern mien was alleviated by the first stirrings of a smile. His eyes _could_ laugh, it seemed, when they needed to – a silvery reed-note in the Force, not a rolling of waves or rustling of warm breeze among leaves. But laughter nonetheless. "A man who prefers bold frontal assault, I see," he almost smiled.

"When outnumbered, yes."

The one Anonymous was positively vexed by _that, _ and Obi Wan made certain his face was _perfectly_ bland, a wall of indifferent tranquility. The other observer remained utterly invisible to him. He thought for a fleeting instant that it was indeed nothing but a statue… but the cloak moved subtly in the dim light, and the mysterious figure cleared its throat, a deep and somehow _elegant_ cough of impatience.

Syfo-Dyas raised a hand and passed it over his bearded chin. "Very well," he responded. "Let us speak of Phindar. The mind wipe droid you encountered: will you describe it?"

He frowned. "I'm sorry., but I didn't see very much of it; I was –"

"No, no," the Jedi master assured him, his voice smooth and light, floating on the air, not filling it like Qui Gon's. "We don't need a schematic. What did its operation _feel_ like? Can you describe that, specifically?"

"Ah… it had electropulsors, I remember.' He brushed fingers against his temples. "I think… here. That was all, really. The Phindians turned it on – all I recall is building pressure, and then pain."

"Yes, that makes sense. Now; the initial report states that you resisted this procedure – for how long?"

"I don't remember, I'm sorry."

"But subjectively…?"

The hooded figures were silent, seeming to shrink back into the diffuse light, shimmer out of existence, retiring respectfully before the face of his scrutiny. He looked at Syfo-Dyas and found the Jedi master studying him just as curiously. "It seemed long to me," he admitted. "I thought – it was hard to stay conscious, at the end. And time opened, like it does in meditation."

"And what were you _doing,_ precisely?"

Was that some sort of test? But the tall, brown robed man was merely intrigued, his eyes open, grey pools of curiosity, quiet speculation. He had already explained to the Council, to the healers, to Qui Gon. Why must he repeat himself ad nauseum? What had he done exactly? Built a wall, yes – he remembered doing that , before they had entered his cell with the wicked device. He had encircled his memories in a protective shield of Light. But when the pain had built to agonizing intensity… then it had been different. He struggled to shape words that would fit the experience.

"I – well, _nothing. _It was so bad that I simply contracted, I suppose. Into the Force. So that my mind wasn't in any place at all; so the pain and the droid were outward and I was inward. I remember that. Before they turned it off and I passed out, I mean."

The nameless person in the background finally stirred, a sharp and uncomfortable vibrancy of interest stirring in the Force. Even Syfo Dyas acknowledged it, for he cast a swift glance over one shoulder before turning back to the Padawan again.

"And Master Qui Gon taught you this technique?" he inquired, his soothing tone betraying an undercurrent of astonishment.

"No, master," Obi Wan said. The mood on the room altered; the three were all present now, no longer melding with the shadows between light and dark. His skin crawled. "No, I was just doing whatever seemed… possible. I don't - I wasn't prepared at all."

The Jedi master bored into him with his piercing eyes for a long minute. "Would you be so kind as to grant us a few moments to converse privately?" Syfo-Dyas said at last. "You may go dine, of course. But I will summon you back in a short while."

Though couched as a request, the words had the connotation of direct mandate. So he bowed, and rose, hairs still rising on his nape, and found his way out the door into the jarringly placid corridor beyond.

* * *

Tahl had stationed herself outside the adjoining hallway's broad intersection.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry, Padawan?"

Obi Wan paused, in mid-stride, braid swinging just over his shoulder as he bowed. "Master. Have you – I was looking for Master Qui Gon."

She smiled ruefully. "He's popular. Senator Valorum requested his assistance with a dispute brewing in the legislative district. Is there an emergency?"

The Padawan swallowed, gaze shifting sideways to the long corridor ahead. "No, master. I'll speak with him later."

Tahl raised an eyebrow. "I'm headed to the dining hall," she decided. "Why don't you keep an old woman company?"

Even Qui Gon's impertinent apprentice didn't have a ready retort for that, so she fixed him with a commanding look and led the way down the concourse, the young Jedi trailing a respectful pace behind.

"Master?"

She slowed, until they had again halted, this time in the shelter of a double colonnade. A window poured noonday warmth upon the inlaid floor. Obi Wan moved into the golden shaft, light glinting on the tips of closely shorn hair. He studied the tiles beneath their boots, then raised his eyes to hers, frowning faintly. "Do you know much about the Sentinels, master?"

_Ah_. Her mouth quirked into a humorless smile. "Enough. Why?"

He hesitated. "Because I don't," he said, after a due consideration.

Tahl watched him carefully. _Blast_ Qui for disappearing just when he was most needed. "Those who pursue such a path are called upon to spend much time in the investigation of dark matters, Padawan. And they must cultivate the skills of stealth and perception, of veiling their presence and seeking truth in .. reluctant places. I suppose other Jedi might find them unnerving. But we all serve the same Force."

"Yes, master."

She could tell the answer had missed its mark by a margin of two or three meters, and silently cursed Qui Gon again. "I'm faint with hunger," she declared. "Keep walking, young one, or you'll end up carrying me."

Obi Wan dutifully compressed his unsettlement into a private corner of his soul and dredged up a smile for her, one to echo the sun spilling through the arched permaglass.. They made it safely to the refectory, where she imposed her presence upon him for the duration of the meal, making a mental note to add yet another debt to the staggering list of favors Qui Gon Jinn owed her.

* * *

Qui Gon endured the better part of the afternoon with outstanding patience, as befitted a Jedi master; but when the last of the intractable disputants had left the negotiating table, and he was left alone in Senator Valorum's sole company, he could not help but voice the sentiment that had been hovering tenaciously at the back of his mind during the entire dreary length of the proceedings.

"I presume there was a reason you requested a Jedi presence at this meeting, Senator – beyond that of mediation."

Valorum was an astute man, and too well-bred to evade a direct , or even an indirect, accusation. He smiled apologetically and spread his manicured hands. "Forgive me, Master Jinn. I did have what some might call ulterior motives in summoning your aid today; though I must admit, I do not think the resolution would have been so unanimously approved had you not been present."

Qui Gon bowed.

The Senator's fine features softened into a pained frown. "The matter I wish to speak to you about concerns those affairs of Telosian finance we discussed so recently… I confess I did not speak with entire sincerity at that meeting."

A seasoned diplomet, Qui Gon conveyed no astonishment or disapproval, and the politician nodded sagely, aware of the courtesy. He withdrew a small chit-case and proferred it to the tall Jedi. "These are… records… of scientific research grants approved and paid out by the Telosian government over the last two standard years. While they have been effective in securing the sector's tax status at a minimal levels – nonprofit donations are provided for under the PanGalactic Development Act – I wonder whether they might be of interest to you in your discreet inquiry."

Qui Gon did not miss the emphasis on the penultimate word. He silently pocketed the data-chits and made another short bow. "I am grateful for your circumspect direction in the matter," he said.

Valorum's pale blue eyes surveyed him with wary trust. "I believe I have left this information in the most suitable hands," he decided, at last.

"I will strive to honor that trust," Qui Gon replied. "May I ask to what field of research these grants are pertinent?"

The Senator sighed and strolled toward the conference room's sound-sealed security door, one arm held out in polite invitation. The Jedi master raised an eyebrow but fell into step beside the sumptuously attired politician. "Genetic conditioning," Valorum replied. "Behavioral modification techniques – neuro-implants, chromosomal manipulation, electropulsor therapy. The field is largely theoretical and experimental, and I am sure you appreciate the political implications. I should not like the Triumvirate to be associated with controversial issues surrounding the hypothetical purposes of such research."

"Naturally not."

They had reached the door. The interview was at an end, though the questions had only begun. Qui Gon bowed, and made his way out of the Legislative building, into bright sunshine that lent no warmth.

* * *

The door slid open before his fingers could brush over the chime's touch-plate.

"Enter."

Master Syfo-Dyas and his companions still occupied the small space, though the bulkier of the two _witnesses_ had decided to lower his cowl, revealing the harsh-chiseled facial features of a young Iktotchi, his cranial horns barely reaching his prominent cheekbones, his pallid irises making his eyes seem translucent.

"My Padawan, Chiros Tyxon," the elder introduced this person. The Iktotchi bowed, and Obi Wan returned the gesture.

Padawan. Like him. Not a threat. His eyes strayed to the other, still cloaked, figure sitting observant in the corner, but Syfo-Dyas offered no further introductions - so he eased himself onto an empty cushion and waited, wondering why his _bad feeling_ would not dissipate into the Force, even with Yamalsa calming breaths. For some reason, it occurred to him that he was the only one here not carrying the 'saber; and this fact unnerved him more than anything else, as though it were a measure of some musical dissonance, some gap in the galaxy's tight-woven fabric. For a moment, he was back on Phindar, waiting "renewal" at the hands of the Syndicat. His heart hammered.

And still the mysterious sentinels said nothing, only watched him impassively. A moment later, he_ was_ back on Phindar, and fear's deluge rose to drown out the slatted Temple window, the delicate inlay in the floor, the pale walls. Perspiration glued his inner tunic to his skin; and cold nausea clawed idly in his belly. He felt the Force slide beneath him, oppressive in its fullness – and that was _different. _ It hadn't been with him on Phindar, not until he touched-

His hand found the rock tucked inside its tiny pocket. Light made it warm, and his fingers closed about it, like the hilt of the weapon already lovingly crafted in his mind, and he _knew. _ And with knowledge came a flare of anger, which he let pass, and then a stronger flare of power, which he seized and wielded. The sustained Force suggestion thrown against him shattered like glass in a rising gale, splintered fragments shredding the illusion to ethereal dust, leaving raw waking reality and his hot resentment starkly opposed in the small chamber.

The Iktotchi clutched at his temples and cast a pained look at Syfo-Dyas. The mysterious observer in the corner drew in a hissing breath. Obi Wan was on his feet. "What was that about?" he demanded.

"Sit," Syfo-Dyas commanded, unperturbed by his breach of protocol, and apparently by his own Padawan's discomfort.

Obi Wan's mouth thinned into a guarded line, and he sat without a nod or a word of deference, on alert, tamping down the random flickers of temper prickling beneath his self control.

"You may leave us, Chiros," the Jedi master said kindly to his companion, and the horned Padawan discreetly took his leave, his shocked and curious stare felt as a rising of hairs on Obi Wan's nape.

"I am very sorry to cause you discomfort," Syfo Dyas told him, when the door had slid shut again. "We needed to evaluate your skill at mental resistance. And indeed, that was an impressive performance." He studied the elegant hands folded in his lap. "This droid used by the Syndicat. How were its intended effects described to you?"

"By the Syndicat? Not at all – they simply called it "renewal." The Phindians told us that it wiped victims' memories – left them without identity or any recollection of their pasts."

"And have you reflected on that? Does it seem likely to you?"

Obi Wan hesitated. "There was one victim we met – she had been renewed… but I noticed that she still had all her practical skills, her knowledge base. And I did wonder how that could be if her memory had truly been wiped. Wouldn't brain damage on that scale erase much of what one had learned over the years?'

Syfo Dyas nodded in approval. "You are perceptive. I suspect the Phindians did not truly understand the effects of this device, and their oppressors were content to let them perpetuate a false mythos surrounding it. Indeed, their own minions may not have understood its true uses."

"So… it wasn't a mind wipe droid?"

The tall, thin Jedi master raised his eyebrows. "It is not possible to _wipe_ a mind clean without destroying it. But to _overlay, _ to _undermine, _ to plant conditioning impulses, this is possible."

Again, a slow thrill descended his spine. Obi Wan exhaled slowly. "So.. I wasn't in danger of losing my memories?"

"Perhaps not. Though I have no doubt you were in danger. What I question is whether your ability to recall past events is any indication that no real damage was done."

He didn't like the sound of _that. _"I don't understand."

"The Syndicat leaders may have been employing their technology to establish behavioral conditioning neuro-pathways: you understand, physiological channels through which subsequent programming could be introduced." When the Padawan only frowned at this revelation, he added, "It's theoretical –or so we hope- and complex; you need not concern yourself with its ramifications. Our concern at present is simply to determine whether you have in fact been so affected."

"What do you want me to do?" Obi Wan asked bluntly. He was weary of the veiled conversation, of the meandering thread of intention. Clearly, this was all leading to an unpleasant conclusion.

Master Syfo-Dyas' face was not unkind; his voice not harsh. The Force shone pure around him, but gave no invisible heat. He drew a breath and then fixed his young interlocutor with a very grave look. "I wonder if you would submit to another , more thorough, examination of your mental condition. I may be able to find things which are not apparent even to Master Li. Unfortunately, my path has taken me into such dark realms of late."

The young Jedi swallowed, his diaphragm clenching into a hard fist. "A.. mind probe?"

"Yes." The sentinel waited patiently, neither encouraging nor offering succor.

They gazed at each other for a measureless span of seconds.

"I… I will do what I must, master."

* * *

Qui Gon slotted the last of the datachits into his reader and pondered the scrolling contents. The steady stream of diverted funds suggested far more than merely academic inquiries; indeed, beyond a medical miracle on the scale of bacta or bota, or the invention of neuro-responsive prosthetics, few scientific discoveries would make their originators enough profit to justify the extravagant cost of such extensive research. He would need assistance deciphering the welter of obscure terminology; but it was clear that the project to which Telos' extensive donations had been made was run by a mega-corporation, or a questionably legal monopoly guild like the Techno Union.

And if not for direct profit, then what?

_It's political, Qui. _ Tahl's incisive comment echoed in memory. He sighed, thoughtfully switched the reader to stand-by, and sank into the Living Force, lifting his awareness from the mire of complexities and vague suspicions, into clear and refreshing currents, his own invisible River of Light

Knifing headache stabbed behind his temples with a simple, childlike clarity, and he drew in a sharp breath. _Obi Wan_. But his subsequent attempt to touch the boy's mind through their Force bond brought him nothing but a wall of bleak and throbbing pain.

He tapped the air-taxi pilot on the shoulder. "Override the traffic restrictions," he ordered, and the man obligingly made some adjustment to the controls and dove out of their assigned airlane, heading in a diagonal beeline for the Temple precinct.

His burgeoning alarm was not soothed by the appearance of Tahl in the upper docking bay, her dark cloak pulled close about her strong but slender shoulders. Qui Gon leapt over the vehicle's side and waved its driver away, covering the decks at a smart clip.

"What is it?"

She tilted her head up at him, one eyebrow cocked. "You clearly know already."

"Where is Obi Wan? What has happened?"

She did not seem to care that the transport droid was watching, its flat optic plates gleaming with professional dispassion as she splayed a hand across his chest, stopping him in his tracks. "You'll not accomplish anything by charging through the Temple like a Wookie berserker."

He exhaled sharply, drew himself up to his impressive full height. It had no effect.

"The Sentinels spoke with him for _three_ hours after noon meal," she informed him briskly, leading the way out once she had quelled his initial flare of battle fury. "I helped him back to quarters."

"Helped him…?"

Her stride lengthened as they exited the transport wing and descended to the residence levels. "Master Dyas and company seem to have worked him over rather thoroughly," she remarked tightly. The lift dawdled inexcusably on its way down the shaft.

"They… what?" He nearly slammed the burnished panels open and stepped over the threshold in one fluid motion, Tahl on his heels. His hands went to his belt, his feet planted in a ready 'saber stance.

She shot him another repressive look. "They do have certain prerogatives, Qui."

"Not where my apprentice is concerned."

Tahl was wise enough to make no reply.

* * *

A Jedi shall know not anger.

Qui Gon dropped his heavy cloak on the small table gracing the center of his living quarters and stormed across the space in four long strides, opening the door to his Padawan's small sleeping room with a brusque nudge of the Force and dropping to one knee beside the low sleep mattress, where Obi Wan lay rigid, blue eyes fixed, unfocused, on the pale ceiling above. At Qui Gon's appearance, the startling groove between his eyebrows deepened to an aggrieved trench.

"Master."

The Jedi master's gentle touch evoked a violent wince. Qui Gon withdrew his hand, took a steadying breath. "Look at me," he ordered.

The Padawan turned his head slightly, scowling as though facing off against a battalion of enraged foes. His jaw trembled a little. Migraine headache throbbed its way across their bond, blurring Qui Gon's own vision for a moment. The wave of anger was even more difficult to ignore.

The tall man settled for laying one hand against the boy's forearm. "What did they do?" he demanded, struggling to release the answering surge of protective fury welling in his own gut. "Obi Wan. The Sentinels. What happened?"

Pain peaked and subsided, a little. Acute nausea followed. "_Kriff," _Obi Wan muttered between clenched teeth. It was not the time to trifle over choice of words; Qui Gon let the profanity slide.

"Qui?" Tahl materialized in the doorframe.

"Get Ben-To," he ordered. Begged. A glance over one shoulder confirmed that Tahl, as ever, understood perfectly. Her tawny gaze offered grounding, anchorage.. and then she was gone, fleet as shadow.

"Padawan. Tell me what happened."

Obi Wan managed to focus on him for one second. "Mind probe," he grated out. "My fault, master."

Qui Gon stood, and his reflexive explosion of anger rebounded across their bond. The Padawan whimpered, once.

_A Jedi shall not know anger. Release, release, release. _The Force. Calm. Center. His hand loosened, moved away from his saber's hilt. Attachment leads to … passion. To hate. He released it all. Surely there had been no intention to harm. Syfo-Dyas was not truly culpable.

"Master?"

"It's all right," he promised. "We'll sort it out."

Obi Wan's sardonic chuckle was nothing but a bitter twist in the Force. "That's what _they_ said," he mumbled between deep centering breaths.

A Jedi shall not know anger. But Qui Gon was fairly certain that the Council, and Syfo-Dyas, were about to know a great deal more of his mind. And at that moment he cared little whether they accused him of anger, or attachment, or reckless disregard for the common good, or blatant disrespect. The purported investigation had gone too far.

And he was _not_ pleased.


	4. Chapter 4

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 4: Rising Wind**

* * *

Jedi healer Ben-To Li lifted one of his patient's eyelids and then straightened with a soft sigh of relief. "Well," he remarked, brusquely unclipping the empty cartridge from a pressure hypo and packing away his other clutter into a small medical case, "_That_ is why we always keep a few conventional sedatives and painkillers lying about. When damage has been inflicted with the Force, the physical body can sometimes be a wonderful ally. Never underestimate the humbler aspects of our nature."

Qui Gon watched his drug-stupefied apprentice's chest rise and fall in slow cadence. He deliberately relaxed his own bunched muscles, breathed away some of the tension simmering beneath his silent regard.

Master Li ran a pensive hand over his beard, smoothing it to a well-groomed apex. " I think I shall linger for an hour or two. Now shoo – gawking won't do your Padawan any good, and I find it exceedingly vexing."

"Thank you, BenTo," Qui Gon replied softly, in no way deceived by the irritable mannerism.

The healer's bright eyes squinted up at him. "My pleasure," he muttered, with a silent snort of amusement.

* * *

Qui Gon sought release in the Living Force. He circumambulated the Room of a Thousand Fountains twice, traversing each meandering path in turn, weaving a fretful course between serene grottos and tranquil vistas. His boots crunched the gravel-strewn paths; droplets of moisture settled in an iridescent mantle upon the dark folds of his cloak.

And yet, he was still _disturbed._

"Master Jinn."

And a Jedi who was disturbed was one whose focus was not in the present moment, where it belonged. He grimaced privately and made a deep bow to the diminutive master leaning on his gimer stick, mid-path, as though he had planted his gnarled self there like a miniature _zaibon_ tree, waiting for Qui Gon to turn the bend. Indeed, he probably had.

"Master Yoda."

"Hmmmph," the ancient Jedi rumbled. "Disturb my evening walk, do you, with your _fretting."_

"My apologies," Qui Gon snapped.

A pair of wise green-gold eyes slitted into narrow crescents, curving scimitars of perceptiveness. "Resent you do, the Sentinels' interference with your Padawan."

The tall man raised an eyebrow. He would not play coy; he had no need to disguise his displeasure. 'Master Syfo-Dyas _brutalized_ a fourteen year old child. Why should I not be concerned?"

Yoda's ears twitched, a combative signal. New lines appeared in his grooved skull and forehead as his brows rose. "Necessary he deemed it. Cooperate willingly, Padawan Kenobi did."

Qui Gon snorted. "He had no idea what was involved. Am I to understand that the Council approves the use of extreme interrogation techniques on the Order's younger generation?"

The gimer stick hit the gravel with a dull crunch of annoyance. "Appointed judge over the Council, you are _not, _Qui Gon Jinn."

He dropped to one knee – perhaps out of respect, perhaps because he wished to look the old troll directly in the face. "No. But I am the Force-anointed _guardian_ of my own Padawan; and I shall stand between him and the Council itself before I suffer such an abomination to be committed again."

Yoda's blast of cold disapproval nearly took his breath away, but he gritted his teeth and held firm.

The ancient one regarded him with gimlet eyes, an imperiously assessing gleam in their depths. His mouth puckered into a wizened line. "Too old are you for such sentiment," he grunted. "Throw not a childish tantrum at _me."_

Qui Gon stood, trembling a little. _Release._ He would not nourish the bright fire of rebellion. He had, as Mace said, a young light to nurture. He exhaled slowly.

Yoda thrust his twisted cane upward, at the tall man's distant face. "Better. Need your diatribe I do not."

Silence. Water burbled faintly in the background.

"Walk with me," Yoda ordered magisterially, and he fell into slow pace beside the crotchety old master, the Force steadying into less bellicose rhythm around them. The water flowed, plants unfurled their leaves in the shafting light, bezzils and flitterbugs scurried hither and thither on their busy errands.

"The Council's explicit approval, Master Dyas did not have," Yoda grunted at length. "Sorry I am that young Obi Wan suffered."

It was a paltry consolation, but Qui Gon nodded. "I regret my brash words to you," he offered in his turn.

The ancient Jedi halted,and turned to regard him gravely, one hoary hand gripping the polished haft of the stick. A throaty sigh escaped him. "Dark matters, the Sentinels investigate, Qui Gon. Patience, must we have, and fortitude, if truth is to be sought out."

He bowed, sorrowfully accepting this, acknowledging that his argument lay elsewhere than with the Grand Master.

They continued down the hushed path in a meditative quiet.

* * *

Obi Wan woke early the next morning. At least, he stumbled out of his room with his eyes open.

"Padawan." Qui Gon rose from his dawn meditation and smiled down upon his groggy apprentice. "It is a rare treat to see you so early in the day."

The boy's hair was a disorderly sculpture of the Modern Expressionist school of art; his braid a frazzled womp-rat's tail. "Yes, master," he managed to reply, blinking in manifest confusion.

Qui Gon steered him toward the low inset bench in the common room's wall. "Sit. I'll make you some tea."

When he returned a few minutes later, the Padawan was halfway asleep again.

"Obi Wan. Drink. I'm afraid Master Li may have, ah, _overdone_ it a trifle."

The young Jedi gratefully tipped the warm, soothing liquid down his throat. "Master Li?" he repeated, frowning. "I don't remember… Well. I don't remember. That would make the Syndicat happy."

Qui Gon's mouth thinned at the bitter undercurrent in this statement. He released his own tidal surge of resentment into the Light and forced a lighthearted chuckle. "Feeling better?' he inquired, taking the empty tea-bowl from his disoriented apprentice.

Obi Wan scowled down at the flooring, arms crossed tightly over his bare chest. With his jumbled thoughts came a boiling geyser of hurt. "The Sentinels," he rasped. "Why did they _do _that?"

The tall master felt his heart twist beneath his ribs. _Release_. "Master Syfo-Dyas is a famed seeker of truth," he replied cautiously. "I do not think he intended you any harm."

Obi Wan looked up at him, betrayal shining in hard blue eyes. "You knew."

The accusation was laced with a hundred barbed implications. Qui Gon exhaled. "I was apprehensive, though I did not know they would go so far. In that sense, I knew. But I let you go, Padawan, because as Jedi we are sometimes called upon by duty to do unpleasant things. You know this. I cannot and will not shelter you from that."

Their bond was still numb – with shock, Qui Gon supposed. Or distrust. Or both. He grieved, and released it. Obi Wan still gazed at him, bruised to the core.

"And you agreed, yourself."

"Yes, master." The Padawan swallowed audibly. "My head still hurts," he observed, as a dull afterthought.

Qui Gon reached out an arm and grasped the boy's chin, softly. "You need to go back to bed," he advised. "I'll make sure someone is here the entire day. To keep you out of trouble."

His apprentice nodded glumly.

"I'm sorry, little one," the Jedi master gently added.

They both pretended not to notice the single tear that escaped captivity and trailed down the boy's cheek. Qui Gon shepherded him back into the smaller bedroom with mock sternness, and allowed the door to slide closed behind him.

_Release. Release_. It was proving confoundedly difficult this morning. Qui Gon had to admit that, at least where his heart was concerned, he still had much to learn.

* * *

"Why, Qui Gon. I see your habits have not altered much in three decades."

The tall Jedi tore his contemplative gaze away from the slow procession of stars and plaents, the tiny holographic inscriptions beside them, the glimmering veins of hyperlanes and astropolitical boundaries. His sanctuary had been invaded; and by a most unexpected person.

Reluctant to disrupt the serenity of the moment, he let the map projector play on; the galaxy swept majestically above, around them. He bowed as the silver-haired master elegantly prowled his way around the observation walkway to Qui Gon's side.

"I find it easy to think among the stars," he smiled thinly. Dooku had never been sympathetic to his penchant for haunting the Temple's map room during the years of his apprenticeship. To the older master, it was a place of sheerest practicality; to Qui Gon, it was an enchanted grotto, his favorite after the indoor arboretum.

"You were always a daydreamer," Dooku observed dispassionately.

They watched the Rishi Maze idle its way overhead, blue and yellow and green light tracing its undulating contours, points of red marking its boundaries and the nearest jump points.

"I thought you were off-planet," Qui Gon said, bluntly.

"I was." Dooku was imperturbable. "I returned to discuss some urgent matters with Sifo-Dyas." His cool grey eyes slid sideways, testing his former student's reserve.

A cold pit tightened in Qui Gon's gut. "You were present when he interviewed my Padawan yesterday." By the _Force…!_

Many people over the years had described Yan Dooku's profile as raptor-like. Now, as he surveyed the twinkling holo-projected map, the luminous dance of solar systems and nebulae against the velvet darkness of the domed spire, that resemblance was more pronounced than ever. "I must say, the boy is quite a handful. I wonder at you, Qui Gon. Discipline is essential to teaching."

A muscle leapt along his jaw. "I have sufficient experience to be the judge of my own apprentice's needs."

Dooku raised one silvering brow. "Having just spent a week in the company of our friend DuCrion, I am inclined to doubt that; however let us not quibble over trivialities."

Qui Gon felt the searing Makashi strike across his composure. Indeed, Dooku had ever believed in strict discipline. He suppressed any flicker of reaction. "I do not wish there to be discord between us," he agreed flatly.

The elder man chuckled, a soft and musical sound without joy in it. "Yet you harbor a grudge, on account of my …what? Participation? It was fortunate I was there."

"What do you mean?" His hands closed round the smooth railing.

"Your Padawan is both strong in the Force and exceedingly obstinate. It took a combined effort for the two of us to break through his reflexive shields far enough to manage a thorough mind probe. And the child subconsciously fought us every step of the way – a most intractable temperament."

Qui Gon controlled his breathing carefully.

Dooku sighed and turned his back to the stars, leaning lightly against the rail, still not making eye contact. "You know, Qui Gon, the boy would actually _make_ a fine Shadow. I've not seen such raw natural talent in generations. Perhaps you should consider transferring his apprenticeship to one of the Sentinels; or at least permitting his training under their direction. It would be a pity for such a gift to be wasted on… diplomacy."

Qui Gon feigned enticement. "If I thought that were in his best interest –"

"The best interest of the Order," Dooku corrected him sharply.

"Are they not the same?"

There was a silence, weighted with the narrow yet measureless gap between agreement and misunderstanding. The stars circled, oblivious to the struggles of mortal flesh.

"I am at present the only one among the Sentinels' ranks who is free to take on an apprentice, "Dooku quietly offered. "It would be my honor to take over the boy's training, Qui Gon. You have done me proud in all your years of service to the Republic."

In another life, Qui Gon might have misinterpreted this as praise, or the offer as a kindness. But he was grown wise, and bore silver hairs of his own, scars of wisdom to remind him of the lessons along the way. "You honor me," he said neutrally.

"Such a thing is highly irregular, but I have some small modicum of influence with the Council." He had in fact, sat upon it for a span of years, before choosing rather to serve as a Shadow.

Qui Gon smiled thinly. "I thought you said my Padawan had an intractable temperament."

But this objection was waved aside. "He would not be the first indocile youth I have had under my charge," Dooku said, meaningfully. "And such vices can be uprooted, with the proper application of authority."

"Such as cruelly violating his psyche in the name of zeal for truth? Forgive me, master, if I confess that I will be laid out on my funeral pyre before I would ever yield over my Padawan to such a fate ." He made a formal bow.

Dooku's posture froze into an icy rigidity. "I see you have indeed not changed much," he replied, trenchantly. His eyes burned cold as a dying star, before he swept away without another word, black cloak sweeping descending stairs, his curving 'saber hilt reflecting the star-map's splendour.

Qui Gon gripped the railing and lifted his mind into the Living Force, into the solemn dance of the galaxy's thousands of burning hearth-fires, sphere upon luminous sphere, all harmonious in their assigned paths, content in their peerless destinies.

But it was a long time before the renewed solitude and peace could settle his tumultuous thoughts into calm once more.

* * *

Tahl scooped a fourth helping atop the Padawan's rapidly dwindling third, and leaned back in amusement to behold one of the Seven Wonders of the Galaxy : an adolescent male appetite at work. The aromatic scent of black fava beans and rozza filled Qui Gon's living quarters, a rich counterpart to the haze of late afternoon sunlight beaming through the open balcony doors.

"I see that spicy _djo_ makes an excellent side dish for brooding," she observed, casually. "Though personally, I would think the combination a surefire recipe for dyspepsia."

"You ought to try some of Master Qui Gon's culinary masterpieces then," her young companion quipped, between eager mouthfuls.

She snorted. "Have _you?"_

The utensil scoop hovered philosophically halfway between face and bowl. "Not yet." A dimple briefly appeared in either cheek. "Perhaps when I face the Trials."

"Finish your meal and your dark musings," she advised him."And spare me the irreverence."

"Yes, master," he said, contentedly applying himself to the former half of this injunction.

The door chimed; Tahl waved open the portal with a flick of one hand; and Garen Muln strode confidently into the room, grey eyes immediately lighting up with enthusiasm for the scent of spicy _djo_ lingering in the air.

He bowed to Tahl. "Master."

"Garen." Obi Wan indicated a space directly beside him at the low trestle table. "You're just in time to be thrown the scraps, like the royal nekks on Vetruvia."

The second Padawan settled gracefully beside his friend. "I was told you were _ill,_ and here you are indulging in gluttony. How is that?" He promptly helped himself to the remainder of the savory dish, laying into the food with relish.

"Diplomacy," Obi Wan replied blandly. "Perhaps someday you will come to appreciate its many applications. For example, _negotiation_ can help one obtain an excellent lunch, while piloting commonly only causes one to lose it."

Garen Muln swallowed and scowled amicably at his companion. "You are the youngest old curmudgeon in the Temple, you know. Since birth." He plucked at the thermal blanket wrapped about his friend's shoulders. "Look. You've even got a shawl like an old wo-" he buried the rest of his remark in a bite of food, upon catching the warning glint in Tahl's eye.

Obi Wan shook his head in patent disapproval. "_Diplomacy,_ Garen."

Tahl raised an arched eyebrow. "Says the one who cheated his way through a sabaac game to earn the reward of this meal."

The Padawan's mouth sprang open in protest. "I play exactly by the rules Master Qui Gon taught me!" he objected, hotly.

"From which it follows, that you are a cheater," Tahl blithely replied.

Garen Muln choked on his food and was absorbed in a prolonged coughing fit for the next two minutes.

Obi Wan's chin came up, with solemn defiance. "If my Master is an old reprobate, then I am honored to share in his infamy."

Tahl rolled her golden eyes. "I'm sure he would appreciate that declaration of irrational loyalty," she said. "But you don't need to borrow anyone else's reputation for trouble, Padawan."

"You oughtn't to taunt me, master. I _am_ in shock," Obi Wan pointed out, tugging at the thermal blanket's hem. "Imagine Master Li's reaction if I relapsed due to sustained emotional abuse."

"Don't tempt me," Tahl shot back. She confiscated the boys' empty dishes and shoved a data-pad beneath Obi Wan's nose. "Back to your studies. That _is _ why you came, Padawan Muln? To study?'

"….Yes, master," they chimed in unison.

* * *

Qui Gon carefully cross-indexed the search parameters for his request and set the Archives computer to work. Senator Valorum's list of grant recipients was cumbersome, and repetitive, and the technical references to avante-garde research obscure in the extreme; but he was determined to thresh out grain from chaff. Xanatos' organization would, of course, be cunningly structured – but anything grown past the scale of sole management had its weak links, its shatterpoint. There was a reason masterminded tyranny could never endure long on a colossal scale.

The system hummed and blipped dizzying images across the data display while he waited patiently, arms folded across his broad chest. One or two others drifted by in the towering aisles behind him, but at this late hour even the Archives were sparsely occupied.

He sensed Mace Windu's approach before the Korun Jedi entered the hushed library vault. The Force's tympanum sounded low and deep, heralding the master's arrival. Unless Mace conscioiusly shielded his presence, he was as discreet as a looming thunderstorm.

"Qui Gon."

"Mace."

They exchanged bows. Qui Gon regarded his friend carefully.

"I had requested to speak before the entire Council," he said.

Mace seated himself on the edge of the desk. "There was no time to honor that request today," he explained. "I've come to hear your grievance personally. Perhaps I can find a solution without the formality of a full session."

"What makes you think I have a grievance?"

The dark-skinned master snorted derisively. "What makes you think I'm fool enough to exchange sophistries with you?"

Ah. So this was a _friendly_ conversation. Qui Gon settled in the chair again. "Syfo-Dyas had no right to rake my Padawan over the coals. For stars' sake, Mace – a _mind probe?_"

The Councilor's liquid brown eyes softened a trifle. "How is Obi Wan? Has he recovered?"

"Somewhat," Qui Gon grudgingly answered. "The Sentinels have no sense of proportion, or moderation. And the Council was _irresponsible _to approve their methods."

The computer blipped its readiness, and he commanded it to load the relevant data onto his 'pad. Mace gathered his thoughts.

"Let's walk," he suggested.

They found their way to an abandoned concourse and strolled leisurely down its central width, flanked by high columns to one side, and a smooth stretch of wall on the other. Nighttime serenity pervaded this hall, as it did every corner of the Temple. Their footfalls slowed to a contemplative pacing.

"The ends do not always justify the means," Mace stated. "However, in this case, there was little choice. Syfo-Dyas felt that the traces of damage left by any of the possible experimental technologies would be too difficult to detect through even ordinary Force-healing practices. This was as much for your Padawan's good as for the sake of the investigation."

"A convenient alignment of purposes," Qui Gon observed. "I wonder which would have taken priority had they not been so consonant?"

Mace scowled, a rumbling in the very Force around them. "As a member of the Council, I do not take the protection of every member of this Order lightly," he growled. "Your implication is insulting, Qui Gon."

"The suffering inflicted on my Padawan by the Sentinels is alarming," the tall man countered. "And what good has come of it?"

The Korun master halted, in the arched doorway to an adjoining classroom, now peaceful and empty. "Qui Gon," he said heavily. "They think the boy may have been subjected to some form of behavioral impulse conditioning – a temporary imprinting process. The details, I admit, were beyond my field of experience. They would like to call in an expert from the Rims, and investigate further. With the intention of specifying what exactly it is that the Phindian Syndicat had laid their hands on, its nature and effects."

Qui Gon returned his somber gaze unflinching. "I am taking Obi Wan to Phindar tomorrow. The Sentinels will have to continue without his assistance."

Mace's face hardened, his lips pressing into a line of challenge, stony determination carving his clear features into ebony stillness. "That will have to wait."

"You do not speak for the entire Council, Mace."

His friend bored into him with flashing eyes. "It will be the first agenda item tomorrow morning," he promised.

"At which time I will be en route to Phindar."

"_Fierfek!" _ Mace exclaimed, the severe mask shattering to reveal hot irritation.. "Do _not _defy the Council again, Qui Gon."

"I will do what I must."

"Then you will cooperate with the Sentinels."

"Syfo-Dyas can take a meditative retreat in the lowest Sith hell before I permit him to so much as _touch_ my apprentice again."

Mace's expression would have made even a senior Padawan melt into tears of dread. But Qui Gon Jinn was a Jedi master, his reputation well deserved. His defiance extended – by rumor – past the Council itself, to the very foundations of tradition. And yet he had ever walked in the Light.

Mace Windu narrowed his eyes, but he too had ever walked in the Light. And his instinct was said to be infallible. "I will _not_ plead on your behalf when you are hauled before us for official censure _again,"_ he warned, at last.

Qui Gon smiled and inclined his head. "I look forward to your harsh indictment."

The Korun Jedi nodded once, sternly, and stepped back one pace.

Qui Gon bowed deeply to his lifelong friend and took his leave.

* * *

"Well. It's about time you came to relieve me," Tahl chided. "I'm growing weary of creche duty."

Qui Gon stepped over the threshold, equally weary in spirit, and looked for the source of her disgruntlement. The sparsely furnished common room was empty.

"He's asleep," Talh informed him. "I provided a good feeding and a highly educational bedtime story."

"Oh?" He sank onto one of the round cushions, pulled his legs up crosswise beneath himself..

"Yes. Pangalactic wedding customs. We had a most illuminating conversation."

"Indeed."

Tahl's smile was layered with subtle private connotations. "Your Padawan has a keen mind, an inquisitive disposition, and a hellishly clever imagination. I think we both found the discussion _most_ engaging."

Qui Gon ran a hand over his face.

"You're tired. Which Council member did you accost ?"

He managed a wry twist of the mouth. "Yoda, Dooku, Mace. In that order."

Tahl's inhalation was an audible hiss. "You don't do anything by halves, do you, Qui?"

He shrugged, abruptly feeling his age. And then some.

Her hand traced lightly over his face, lingering against his brow for a moment. "Get some rest. Perhaps I'll see you tomorrow."

"We're leaving for Phindar in the morning."

She accepted this with perfect detachment. They were Jedi. "Then I'll see you later, Force willing."

"Force willing." Their customary words of parting hung in the warm air for a few moments after she slipped out the door.

Qui Gon rose, and dragged his heavy limbs to his own bedchamber, and gratefully retired, welcoming the gentle oblivion of sleep, and the end of this strife-wracked day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 5: Cloudbreak**

* * *

"Well, at least it's an improvement over _some_ ships we've been aboard," Obi Wan observed dryly.

Qui Gon raised a dubious eyebrow. The clunking freighter sitting on the docking pad before them was not an alluring sight; it reminded him strongly of the battered _Monument_ which had borne then to Bandomeer, one eternal year ago. "I wouldn't be so sure," he remarked.

"It is, master. This one doesn't have Huttese obscenities scrawled on the hull."

It was true; the vessel was graffiti-free… no doubt due to a new coat of cheap paint, one intended to replicate the colors and symbols of the Phindian planetary seal. "They are very proud of their new freedoms," he smiled.

"I hope Guerra at least managed to book a first-class cabin for us."

They strolled across the yammering, squealing, cacophonous shipyard to the waiting access ramp. "You are optimistic to suppose there is such a thing aboard a freighter like this," the tall man told him, leading the way into the ship's bowels. A friendly Phindian steward directed them – with much waving of arms and repeating of instructions – to an aft cabin which, if not luxurious enough to qualify as _first class,_ did at least brag two separate inset bunks and a private 'fresher.

"And a _mynock_ trap," Obi Wan discovered, pulling the ingenious device out from beneath a loose panel in the starboard bulkhead. "I take it that means we're infested."

"Put that back," Qui Gon ordered. He looked up at the ceiling vents and the therm regulator. Still, a mynock draining the power supply _would _ prevent Obi Wan from stifling them by turning up the temp control to its maximum setting. It was a boon, from a certain point of view.

The Padawan dumped his small satchel unceremoniously on the nearest bunk and settled regally in the cabin's one chair, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee in an absurd posture of casual self-assurance. "How many hours till Phindar?" he inquired.

"Tolerably few, if you don't chatter the entire time," his master quipped.

A flagrantly frivolous use of the Force brought Obi Wan's datapad sailing out of the satchel into its owner's outstretched hand. "I shall improve my mind, then," he said, "Since you won't allow me to improve _yours."_

'I propose a bargain," Qui Gon responded levelly. "If you can manage to curb your impudence during the _entire_ duration of this journey, I shall permit you to sample the _fermis_ at Paxxi's wedding."

His apprentice's eyebrows inched upward ironically. "Your magnanimity overwhelms me, master."

_Brat. _ "Alas, Obi Wan, you have already lost the contest."

A shrug. "Defeat with honor is the nobler path when presented with a swindler's dilemma," the young Jedi proclaimed. He tapped the datapad's screen. "So says Master Chakora Seva."

"The same wise master also said that _Actions speak louder than words, but silence more eloquently than either. _Perhaps you should attend more carefully to your studies."

The Padawan grinned at him, a slightly lopsided acceptance of _honorable_ defeat, and subsided into studious quiet. Qui Gon settled upon the deck in meditation posture, and prepared to wait out the tedious journey in patience.

* * *

"I win, yet again."

Obi Wan glared at him, humorously. "Master Tahl says you cheat."

"Indeed? And do you concur with this unjust accusation?'

The Padawan frowned. "I think you used a mind trick to confuse me," he muttered, shuffling the sabaac deck with the precision of a hardened casino patron.

Qui Gon laced his fingers behind his head. "Believe me, young one, if I thought mind influence would work on you, I should not waste it upon a mere sabaac game. I can think of far more _pragmatic_ applications."

Obi Wan merely raised an eyebrow and dealt the next hand.

The Jedi master scrutinized his cards. "On the other hand, there is a time and a place for everything: Obi Wan, you _want_ to lead with a deuce of gundarks."

"I want to lead with a deuce of gundarks," his apprentice repeated, laying down a far more problematic opening salvo with a distinct expression of smug mischief.. "…But I want to _win_ even more."

The tall man considered his options, face inscrutably placid. "You see – your obstinacy is proof enough that I have attempted no treachery. It would take far more than a simple mind trick to get through your thick skull."

But the Padawan only frowned at this. The Force darkened with pain.

Qui Gon laid down his cards. "Forgive me," he said. "I spoke without thought."

Obi Wan looked up at him, swallowed. His bright eyes hardened. "The Sentinels think something is wrong with my mind," he accused. "You aren't shielding your thoughts very well, master."

The vexed undertone was unmistakable. 'Would you prefer I deceive you?" the tall Jedi inquired wryly.

"No," his apprentice scowled. "I would prefer that …" he trailed off, eyes sliding sideways, evasive.

"You aren't shielding very well, either, my belligerent Padawan. There will be no _inspirational_ encounters with Master Dyas." _Though I am severely tempted._

Obi Wan didn't look at him yet, but a smile ghosted across his face as he perceived the unspoken amendment to the statement.

"If there is anything amiss, it is nothing you need fret about for now," Qui Gon assured him. "We'll have Ben-To look into it when we return to the Temple. _Not_ the Sentinels. In the meantime, I will begin teaching you the deep centering meditations. The Force is a powerful ally, and the foundation of a Jedi's strength and sanity. In time, you should be able to both purge and protect your own mind from any hostile influence."

A tentative nod. Doubt still wormed in melancholic depths, but a glint of humor sparkled on the ruffled surface of the young Jedi's thoughts. "That may pose another significant obstacle to your authority, master."

The tall man's mouth thinned, severely repressing any outward sign of amusement. "I did not say that _you_ were exempt from inspiration_,_ Padawan."

* * *

"So! Esteemed Jedi passengers," the obliging steward grinned at them, pushing his way through the narrow cabin door with a platter of food in his long arms. "This sample of Phindian cuisine brought to you by the captain's orders, I do not lie! Please, you should be enjoying this feast, better than any you have tasted in your lives. Not so – I lie! But ship's cook promises that it is edible, true fact."

"Thank you," Qui Gon bowed, relieving him of the awkward burden as the Phindian struggled to set up a portable table between the ships' bunks. "We are grateful for the captain's thoughtfulness."

The steward withdrew amid a torrent of other enthusiastic and exclamations of hospitality.

"What's this?" Obi Wan wondered aloud, inquisitively raising the lids of various dishes.

"A testament to the creative powers of the cook, I think," the older man replied. "You will find that shipboard pre-fab is always much the same, however fancifully garnished."

Obi Wan cheerfully helped himself to a colossal serving of everything and set to work. "As long as it's edible," he decided.

Qui Gon harbored private doubts in that quarter, but chose not to share them. He made a prudent selection of the various offerings and perched on the edge of the second bunk, opposite his Padawan.

"Master Tahl says that Phindians give a great deal of thought to their wedding feasts," Obi Wan said conversationally, as they ate. "Apparently, their old folk customs dictate that the choice of food served at the banquet bequeaths certain blessings upon the new couple. Prosperity, contentment, good health." He smirked. "And fecundity, of course."

Qui Gon cocked his head to one side. "Master Tahl appears to be well informed," he responded diplomatically.

"Yes," his apprentice continued in an abstract academic vein. "She says the cake is always made with extract of the _ch'xlatl _ bean because of its rumored aphrodisiac properties."

"I'm sure her information is correct," he answered. "Tahl is a consummate scholar."

"Do you suppose there is any truth in the idea of certain foods provoking various passions?"

Qui Gon pondered it briefly. "The Living Force is mysterious, and manifests in an amazing diversity of ways, both great and small. Organic life is a complex tapestry of influences and connections. I would not dismiss such a thing as impossible."

Obi Wan nodded solemnly, eyes twinkling. "Yes, master. Have you noticed that there is never anything made with _ch'xlatl _ served in the Temple refectories?"

"Eat your dinner, Padawan."

The young Jedi obeyed in demure silence, but his dimples betrayed a barely suppressed private amusement.

And Qui Gon wondered why he _hadn't_ noticed that particular fact before.

* * *

"It's so _blasted _cold."

Qui Gon sighed in resignation, and tossed his own thin blanket across the short space between the bunks. "You are _not_ turning up that therm regulator to a murderously high setting," he grumbled, wrapping himself in his cloak and turning over on his side. This difference of perspective regarding the chill of space travel was one of the few entrenched disputes which proved irresolvable between them, Jedi diplomatic skills or not. He heard a faint rustle as Obi Wan cocooned himself in the second blanket, and then a soft sigh of content.

"I should take you to Hoth for survival training," the master grumbled. "Or Ord Plutonia." Ilum was fiendishly cold, too, but he decided not to bring that up at the moment. They had other things to focus upon.

"I'm shaking in my boots," his apprentice yawned.

Qui Gon snorted. The freighter was a sluggish and dilapidated piece of junk, bright new paint job notwithstanding. Most industries on Phindar had been severely undermined by the Syndicat's brief reign of power; the planetary economy had been leached of vitality, its people reduced to near starvation. And yet the riches of Phindar must have gone _somewhere…._ Even the plunder-houses that he had helped the insurgents "liberate" with the help of Paxxi Derrida's ingenious – and undeniably criminal – antiregister did not hold enough wealth to account for the poverty of the entire system. Clearly a parasitic drain had been placed upon the world's resources and production. One which fed, perhaps, some scion of Offworld, or one of its unspoken allegiances.

"Master?'

"You're supposed to be sleeping soundly, now that you've commandeered every blanket in the vicinity."

Obi Wan ignored the jibe. "Do you think we will have time to return to the Syndicat headquarters?"

Qui Gon rolled onto his back again, turned his head to peer through the darkened cabin. In the dim illumination from emergency lights near the floor, he could barely make out his Padawan's profile. "Why should we?' he asked, unease prickling at the back of his mind.

"I… I need to. I think the Force is telling me to go back there for some reason."

Mace's words dripped like burning poison through his veins. Qui Gon's skin crawled. "I think you should let me be judge and guide to you in that respect," he said at last. "For now."

"But –"

"We will discuss it more later."

"But – "

"Obi Wan."

Once again, hurt and a dull ache of distrust echoed across their bond. The Padawan drew in a soft breath. "Yes, master."

They lapsed into discontented silence.

The ship groaned and creaked around them; footfalls could be heard on the upper deck.

"Get up," Qui Gon decided after an uncomfortable stretch of minutes.

"What?"

"You heard me. We're going to get some exercise."

The young Jedi knew better than to object. A moment later, they had abandoned their cabin in search of less cramped, and pensive, environs.

* * *

The freighter did not possess many amenities; but an empty cargo bay on the port side was a luxury both Jedi were glad to discover. After so many hours of dreary journeying, too much idleness fraught with introspection, they both needed a grounding and channel for restless energy.

"And again. Slower, this time," Qui Gon instructed, leading the way through a complex weaponless _kata,_ watching carefully as Obi Wan mirrored his every demanding move on a more compact scale. Slowing the dance to a meditative near-stillness, flowing with infinite patience through each centimeter of the minutely balanced regimen, they sank deep into the Living Force, lungs expanding with its kindling Light, blood flowing to its solemn rhythm, tension and fruitless worry wrung away, seeping out with the perspiration that ran freely down their backs, soaked hair and clothing.

Some things could not be taught in mere words, their mysteries not revealed discursively. In the Force, they soared on a single ethereal current, one beneath the other's wings, held aloft on limitless Light. In this non-place there was peace and wholeness; in their motion there was perfect tranquility; in their exertion, effortless unity. Here, in hyperspace between the Temple and Phindar, between home and friends, between strife and unknown peril, they rested and did not rest, moved and did not move, on a Path with no bounds and no destination but its own origin.

* * *

"Jedi Gon! Obawan!"

They had barely set foot upon the cracked spaceport deck before Guerra Derida's ringing voice carried over the hubbub. The Phindian's waving arms appeared over the tumultuous horizon of heads and luggage trolleys, summoning his guests forward.

Obi Wan looked up at his mentor. "Prepare for bombardment."

"So! My friends! I am overjoyed to be seeing you again! Welcome to Phindar – without you, the wedding would be cancelled! Not so, I lie! But it is good you are here, true fact!"

The Phindian's arms were long enough to wrap them both in a stifling embrace. Qui Gon adroitly maneuvered his Padawan into the center of this uncomfortable sandwich, exerting some playful extra pressure of his own and ending with an affectionate tug on the boy's short nerf-tail. Upon being released, Obi Wan glanced up at the tall Jedi accusingly; but Qui Gon merely raised his eyebrows in an expression of guileless innocence.

"So glad you are here in time," Guerra enthused. "The bachelor party will be more fun with Jedi to come, so! And Paxxi – more good news, my friends. The elections are final and you will never guess the outcome, true fact."

"Paxxi was elected Governor?' Qui Gon guessed.

"Ah, Jedi mind powers, not fair!" the Phindian cheerfully mourned. "How did you know, Jedi Gon? My brother, he is winning the election by a landslide vote!"

"But…" Obi Wan frowned over this piece of intelligence. "Were you not his chief opponent?"

"So! Obawan, and never more glad to be defeated. I do not lie! Politics is not for me."

"We look forward to seeing Paxxi again," Qui Gon told him. "And meeting his bride."

"Not so!" their friend prattled away merrily as he led them to a dilapidated land speeder. "Tradition, so! The bride is never seen until the wedding, even by the groom. No time to regret his choice this way – not so, I lie!"

They clambered into the battered vehicle, and Guerra demonstrated his death-defying piloting abilities, much on a par with his brother's reckless skills. Obi Wan looked a bit white around the gills as they blasted their way past the spaceport's gates.

"Master?"

Guerra nearly crashed into a hoverbarge headed the opposite direction on the same side of the road. Qui Gon swiftly called upon the Force to nudge the oncoming freight vehicle out of the way. "Ah… yes, Padawan?"

"What is a bachelor party?"

They hurtled into the busy town center, where commerce and business now thrived. Several near-collisions later, Qui Gon had a spare moment to answer. "It marks the last day of carefree masculine freedom, in most cultures," he said.

Their driver rammed on the brakes, nearly sending them flying through the windshield. Jedi reflexes saved them.

"Idiot, so!" Guerra shook a fist at another speeder pilot. "My fault – not so, I lie!"

"Is it not a celebration, then?" the Padawan mused, curious.

They dodged and weaved their way through the heavy traffic, amid blasting of sirens and horns. Every Phindian who could afford a speeder seemed to believe in the liberal application of noise and shouting as an aide to its successful operation. It was several ear-splitting minutes before Qui Gon could make himself heard. "I shouldn't fret over it much, Obi Wan. Marriage is not a trial you will personally face."

"Yes, master," his apprentice agreed, with a hint of childlike relief.

Guerra took a corner at alarming speed, almost throwing his guests out of the speeder. "There!" he called out triumphantly, indicating the monument atop a plinth in the city's central square. "Freedom for Phindar, so!" It was the mind-wipe droid, disassembled and transformed into a contorted sculpture, a mocking tribute to the machines of oppression.

Qui Gon gripped his Padawan's knee as a cold thrill translated across their Force bond.

"Breathe," he ordered.

"So!" Guerra declared, oblivious. "The Syndicat is liking this new artwork – very generous patrons. Not so, I lie! And your names inscribed on the plaque, so."

"We do not require any such recognition," Qui Gon told him.

"Oh, Jedi. Too humble," their host replied, kicking the speeder back to full speed and barreling down a side avenue toward the outskirts of the rambling city.

"Padawan."

"I'm fine, master," Obi Wan lied.

Before Qui Gon could press any further, their journey ended in a choking dust-cloud as Guerra jerked the speeder to a slithering halt before the Derida family's ramshackle domicile. "Here, so!" he bellowed, exuberantly. "Paxxi, my brother, the Jedi have arrived, no lie!"

* * *

"Our congratulations upon your election to office."

Paxxi Derida grinned, his orange eyes glowing with the pride of accomplishment. "From a life of unstealing and thievery to governor of Phindar," he beamed. "Quite a change, so!"

Obi Wan's mouth quirked upward at one corner. Qui Gon deftly trod upon his left foot.

"Your people are fortunate to have such an experienced head of state," the tall man answered smoothly, before his apprentice could remark upon the similarity of the two professions. "When is your investiture to be held?"

The Phindian clapped his hands together in pleasure. "Day after wedding, so!" he exclaimed. " And Jedi at the inauguration, not so shabby! Invited you just for this reason – not so, I lie!"

The Jedi master bowed to his host, and Obi Wan followed suit. The two exchanged a significant glance of shared amusement. Underhanded scheming apparently was a habit that died hard – but the Phindian's enormous heart compensated for the undeniably devious aspect of his personality.

"I sense that he will do well in office," the Padawan remarked, as Paxxi led them through the house's broad enclosed porch and into a large common room crammed wall to wall with raucous guests.

"Attention! So!" Guerra shouted over the din. "The Jedi have arrived, to bring an end to this rowdiness and debauchery – not so, I lie!"

A cheer of welcome rattled the dilapidated house's rafters. Qui Gon placed a steadying hand on his apprentice's shoulder. An older Derida relative handed round small fluted glasses of pale liqueur. "Toast! A toast!" the enthused guests demanded.

The avuncular Phindian shoved glasses into both Jedi's hands. "Not to drink for the toast – very risky! One drop left, and bad luck for the bridegroom, so, no lie!" he advised. "Besides, Paxxi went to much trouble to unsteal this _fermis_ from the Syndicat warehouse, so!"

Obi Wan's eyes widened in delight, and he shot a pleading glance at Qui Gon.

"No," the Jedi master said.

"To Paxxi's last day of freedom, so tragic… not so, I lie!" Guerra bellowed.

The company raised their cups in salute and quickly downed their contents. Qui Gon tossed his back and help up a warning finger at his eager Padawan.

"But, master, he said that it would be a breach of manners not to –"

The tall man took the Padawan's glass and emptied it, as well. "There is always a diplomatic solution, young one."

The elder refilled the cups, making his way among the gathering with a happy spring in his step, his wrinkled face leering happily at each guest. "Another round! Another!"

"Thank you," Obi Wan said flatly when his turn came.

"To our Jedi friends, who traveled all the way from Coruscant to see us!"

Qui Gon dispatched both servings of _fermis_ once more, much to his apprentice's disappointment. The elder tottered through the crowd, unsteadily filling the glasses yet again. Evidently, the toasting had been proceeding for some time before their arrival.

"To Paxxi's future wife, may she rule with mercy and leniency!" someone shouted, amid loud titters of hilarity.

"_Master,"_ Obi Wan muttered pointedly, relinquishing his glass for the third time.

The spreading warmth of the alcohol and the Padawan's truculent expression made Qui Gon chuckle. "To mercy and leniency," he smiled, downing both helpings.

A hush fell as Paxxi raised his own glass. "Freedom for Phindar!" he roared, and every voice in the room took up the cry.

A seismic jolt in the Force; Obi Wan staggered against his mentor. The Phindians carried on, applauding and whistling their hearty approval. Qui Gon grabbed the Padawan's arm.

"Easy."

They were near the entrance; fresh air was just over the threshold. Obi Wan sank down upon the rickety steps outside the back door, clutching his temples.

"Master… I'm sorry… I don't know what –"

"So! Foolish and stupid!" a peevish voice interrupted. Qui Gon glanlced up to behold Duena, the ferocious Derida matriarch, standing with long arms akimbo, her feet planted squarely beneath her burdensome frame. "Too much drinking and carrying on, so! Here, let Duena help, she knows what to do for young ones, no lie."

Obi Wan shook his head, leery of the old Phindian woman's offer. "No, master, I'm fine, I – _ah.."_ His eyes squeezed shut and one hand seized the hem of Qui Gon's tunic. The Force was in turmoil; migraine throbbed faintly behind Qui Gon's own skull, as it had in the Temple after the Sentinel's inexcusable assault upon his student. Duena's aged hands were shooing him away, firmly pulling the Padawan's fingers out of the cream fabric.

"No, no,no, chick," she babbled. "Come with Duena now. You – Jedi Gon – go back to those fool-head men. Leave Duena to care for this one. Tch-tch-tch, Obawan, come here now, this way."

"I'll be there in a moment, "Qui Gon promised, ducking back beneath the low door lintel. Senses unfurled into the seething plenum, he sought for the source of this unexpected disturbance, reaching through the invisible currents for some clue, some trace of its origin. The riotous bachelor party surged and spiked about him, loud and giddy with enjoyment. But he could find no echo, no signature or imprint of any foul influence. There was nothing but sincere happiness – and a good deal of inebriation – in the flowing river of the Living Force here.

Whatever the poison, it was something his Padawan carried within.

And that was not an encouraging thought.

* * *

"Stubborn bantha head," Duena sniffed, shuffling aside to permit QuiGon entrance to her small cottage behind the main house. "Meditate, he says, so! What good is this?"

"Thank you for your concern, Duena," the tall man said, pushing gently past. "I'll see to him now."

The elderly Phindian snorted her reluctant acquiescence, and stumped into her cramped kitchen, from whence the seductive aroma of _ch'xlatl_ slowly seeped. The wedding cake, no doubt, being alchemically engendered in the matriarch's humble domestic shrine.

Obi Wan had repelled the kindly crone's well-intentioned cosseting by slipping into a light trance. He knelt in the center of a small room tucked away off a short hall, one hand open on his knee, the other closed about some small object.

The river stone. Qui Gon sank down beside the boy, wrapped his own calloused hand over the tightly clamped fist. The Force rose to meet him, swept him up alongside his student, carried them both within its motionless dance.

And there they remained, in serene effulgence, while the Phindians reveled and cavorted, and Duena mixed and stirred and muttered, and the night slowly rolled away to a new dawn.


	6. Chapter 6

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Lightning**

* * *

"Careful, Padawan!"

The footing was treacherous; gophrix holes and clumps of tangled roots dotted the crumbling soil with hundreds of tiny perilous obstacles, while the dust stirred up by the scuffling and stamping of boots rose in a gritty and veiling cloud.

Qui Gon parried a sloppy strike one-handed, grunting as the shock carried up his arm. Two wooden staves -borrowed from the impressive pile of unstolen junk occupying the Derida family outbuildings -made improvised weapons for a morning training session. Long-staff fighting was by no means the preferred style of Jedi combat, but the tall master was a believer in broad horizons, and a wide array of accomplishments. And the unwieldy length of heavy wood _did_ serve to keep his Padawan on the ground, unable to press the advantage of speed and agility afforded him by Ataru.

The makeshift weapons clashed in staccato percussion as the duelists drove together. Qui Gon held his enthusiastic opponent at bay, dodging, blocking, evading, not using his full strength nor using his superior height to best effect. It was an enjoyable morning; native birds twittered beneath the rotting eaves of the Phindians' home, the sun breathed a fulsome warmth over the distant skies, the air was redolent with a thousand heady scents from Duena's kitched. Indeed, the old woman seemed to have been industriously preparing the wedding feast all night long.

"You aren't trying, master!" Obi Wan complained, shifting tactics and attacking Qui Gon's legs and knees with savage dedication to excellence.

"Ah, but that is a strategy in itself. Perhaps I –" he jumped over a blow aimed at his kneecaps, "Am fighting a war of attrition."

The Padawan launched himself forward, staff whirling, feinting and sweeping in erratic pattern.

"Good!" the Jedi master called out. "You'll be exhausted in no time!" He ducked beneath a strike that set the air whistling above his head. He blocked another attack, stepped aside from the next, sprang over the next, and laughingly dodged another.

His frustrated apprentice threw himself into the next assault with abandon. Qui Gon tossed aside his own weapon and seized either end of the Padawan's, locking them in a wrestling match, two pairs of hands wrapped about the single length of wood.

"You can't _touch_ my blades!" Obi Wan fumed. "That's _completely_ ridiculous! Your hand would be burned off!"

Qui Gon bore down, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. "But it's not _really _a double saber, is it?" He threw his full weight forward, driving the outraged Padawan to his knees, and then onto his back, the staff pressed high against his throat, under the chin, while one of Qui Gon's knees rested lightly on his chest. "You are the victim of your own false assumptions, Padawan."

"I am the victim of a shameless cheater!" the boy cried out valiantly, still struggling vainly to escape. Qui Gon dug his knee in a bit harder, transforming the rebellious fire into a wheezing grunt.

"Yield, my deluded young friend."

The Padawan went limp, and was promptly released. "My Master is a bullying _gundark_," he muttered darkly as Qui Gon gave him a hand up.

"My apprentice is an ill-disciplined brat," the tall Jedi amicably replied, watching the boy brush dirt and dried grass from his short hair. "So you see, we both have much to learn."

Obi Wan sneezed explosively in the dust-laden air. "…Yes, master."

* * *

"Now, now, now," Duena crooned, bustling about her small table. "You must be having some breakfast, before those other buffoons wake up and eat it all – not so, I lie! In a stupor most the morning, that's what they'll be, so. Fool-head celebration, nothing but a way to be hung over, true fact. But traditional, nobody asks me what I think, so."

"Thank you for your hospitality," Qui Gon responded politely.

Duena poured a bitter tea and began scooping generous portions into dishes. "There now, Obawan, eat up, nobody can grow properly without a mother's cooking, no lie. Maybe if you had a proper family, you might not be so small compared to Jedi Gon, true fact. Far to go, you have, to catch up," she nodded sagely.

The Padawan's disgruntlement was a sharp and fleeting tang in the Force. "I'm growing taller," he asserted sullenly.

"Not so, you lie!" the old Phindian chuckled at him, serving Qui Gon in his turn.

Obi Wan's mouth twisted wryly and he set about eating in peevish silence.

"Duena," the Jedi master kindly changed the topic, "When you worked for the Syndicat, you had access to the headquarters."

The old woman nodded sorrowfully. "Yes," she moaned. "Wish I did not. My poor daughter – renewed and made to serve those sons of vetches. Destroyed her, so! They did. And I had to watch." Her drooping orange eyes closed for a moment in grief, but when she looked up at them again, the familiar smoldering determination had not been stamped out. "Why do you ask, Jedi Gon?"

"I wonder if you still have the security passkeys."

Duena grinned at them, her aged teeth yellowing and crooked, but the smile lighting her face nonetheless. "I have thrown away these things, as the law commands," she snorted. "Not so! I lie! Of course I still have them. But the building is condemned. Paxxi will have it torn down so soon as he is in office, so! Phindar does not need memories of that time."

The tall Jedi leaned back, thoughtfully. "I wonder if I might have a look round there today. There are some unanswered questions concerning the Syndicat which I need to investigate. Perhaps vital information still lies undiscovered in their records or communications equipment."

The old Phindian shrugged. "I do not know what you are doing, so!" she exclaimed, sliding a thin code-card across the table to him. "Jedi business, not mine, true fact."

Qui Gon pocketed the electronic key.

"We had better make haste, master – the wedding is set for noon hour."

"_You_ will be staying here, Obi Wan."

The Padawan gently shoved his plate aside, appetite gone.

Duena observed the exchange with old, perceptive eyes. "Go back there? Fun for you – not so! Stay here, Obawan. Guerra and Paxxi are eager to spend time with you, true fact. Hurt feelings all round if you depart, so!"

The young Jedi summoned a pleasant smile. "Of course – I look forward to seeing them, as well. If they ever manage to shake off the effects of their revelry." He shot another uncertain and wounded look at Qui Gon, but received only a façade of calm in return.

The tall man rose, laid a conciliatory hand on his student's shoulder. "I will share any discoveries I make with you later," he promised. "Perhaps we can unravel some of this knot together."

It was a light balm applied to a deep bruise, but the Padawan nodded. "Yes, master."

The Jedi master held his gaze for a moment. _Trust me, This is for your own good._ He felt a touch of surliness across their bond, but in the end his apprentice bowed his head in respect, and they said no more.

Qui Gon threw his cloak over his wide shoulders and left on his quest, accompanied only by his Padawan's chafing regret.

* * *

The Syndicat's monolithic headquarters were as he remembered: jarringly out of place on quaint Phindar, an architectural testament to alien and impersonal oppression. Duena's security pass was still functional; the newly liberated planetary security forces must have satisfied themselves with confiscation of all existing keys. Likely enough the technology used by the previous owners was imported and unfamiliar. Qui Gon's hand brushed over the smooth reader plate, optic terminals embedded in the crystalline touch surface. Techno Union: very nice, very expensive.

Again, something from a foreign potentate.

He wandered down the main hallway, his boots echoing ghoulishly against the cold, polished tiles. There had been luxurious appointments in the upstairs private offices; here the fortress was stern, unforgiving. He hesitated at the stairwell, listening to the Living Force. Up to the records and comm equipment…. Or down?

His legs carried him down. Motion sensitive glowlights picked oout the path; his cloak brushed whisper-faint against the steps as he descended to the lower level. Ghastly echoes of past prisoners fluttered against his awareness. There had been suffering here; and oblivion. He passed a row of holding cells, tiny cramped spaces with heavy locks. An open room containing what appeared to be a medical cot, but a lack of lighting and sterile shielding that suggested other, more nefarious, uses. A storage closet, torn open and denuded of its contents.

At the end, one last cell, like the others. He brushed fingers against the panel, and it hissed open, unprotesting.

This was the place; the very Force was stained with it, textured and imprinted, so familiar that he ached dully. He hadn't been present – Ben To Li's indictment had been justified. And though he had been sick with worry, distraught as no Jedi master should be, he had been helpless to intervene, not without placing the lives of the many over that of one.

He knelt in the center of the hard stone floor, felt the uneven flagging beneath his finger tips. Cold seeped up from the ground in somber waves. How long had Obi Wan waited here, expecting his identity to be unraveled, his life unmade into meaningless strands? He could sense the childish fear, the enervating loneliness still clinging to the walls, to the very air. The Force danced mournfully about him, welcoming a wiling ear for its lament, softly accusing him of negligence.

"I should have been more watchful," he admitted, head bowed. And that droid – what had that been like? He disciplined his breathing, harnessed it into orderly rhythm. Trials were a part of every Jedi's life, but they should not be faced unprepared, unaided. The Force sighed around him, heavy with remembered pain. The Syndicat guards – had they been efficient? Had they laughed, even? Or were they victims of renewal themselves, protected from the pangs of conscience by the excision of their vital sentience?

He had not meditated sufficiently on the raw and bleeding _fact_ of his Padawan's experience, blithely consigning it to the past and oblivion as soon as the boy had been restored to liberty, had saved the day in triumphant youthful spirits. The present moment had been so full, so giddy with the Phindians' joy, with the Syndicat's downfall, with Obi Wan's need to press forward, onward, past the moment of weakness, that he had been lulled into false security.

Some things were not consummated by forgetfulness. This Trial had yet to see its completion, and they – he- had been foolish and naïve to suppose that leaving this _place_ would mean a return to wholeness without scars.

Dooku and Syfo-Dyas had seen that. Hateful as the admission was, he made it. Accustomed to dark dealings, the Sentinels had perceived the possible trap, the danger lurking beneath the surface of the happy ending, the tendrils of connection that bound present to past, past to future, and spirit to both.

Qui Gon released all emotion. The Force smoothed into furled potential, flowed around him in consonant agreement. He had indeed made mistakes; but he retained for himself the right to unmake them, and thereby learn by teaching.

He rose, full of renewed determination, and ascended the shadowed stairway, into the inner sanctum of the Syndicat's fortress. If the Force was with him, answers would be waiting.

* * *

"Oh, my head!" Guerra Derida groaned, clutching at the offending item with both hands. "Never better – not so! Like a speeder accident in my brain, so!"

"How would you tell the difference, my brother?" Paxxi teased. "In your brain, there is always a speeder accident."

"So, my brother. Better than you, who have these on the outside, so!"

"Ha,ha!" The elder Derida patted his unfortunate sibling on the back and gulped down his fourth ceramic bowl of caff. "Here, Obawan, helps with headache, no lie."

The Padawan inhaled the earthy scent of the strong brew. Life with Qui Gon Jinn involved a great deal of tea… he welcomed the change. "Not overindulging helps with the headache, too," he told the suffering twosome. The caff was strong and bitter on the tongue. A dark and gritty sludge lingered at the bottom of the small cup.

"True, true!"Guerra confessed. "Always the upright preacher, young Obawan, no lie! Show us that face, again, Jedi friend! Oh, my brother, does that not remind you of Kaadi on a moral rampage?"

"So, just so!" Paxxi guffawed. "Spare me, Obawan, last hours of freedom, so! No sermons today."

The young Jedi swallowed a grumbling sigh. He _didn't _ lecture all the time, contrary to the absurd claims of Garen, Bant, Reeft, Ali Alaan, the Derida brothers, and any number of other equally delusional acquaintances. He released his annoyance into the Force and helped himself to another cup of caff, sloshing a bit of blue cream into the dark liquid as he had seen Duena do earlier.

"And don't tell Kaadi about our little gathering, so! Disapprove, she would, no lie."

"Paxxi," Obi Wan inquired, frowning. "Are you truly going to have the Syndicat headquarters demolished?"

"So, Obawan! Coming down, the whole place, and buried in Phindar's past, no lie. My first act as Governor, so. Good for media, am I not right my brother?"

"So, Paxxi! A brilliant move, true fact. Phindar will be doing its own _renewing,_ I do not lie. So, the Syndicat is going up, one big explosion, so! Engineers waiting to do it. Charges already locked up in our new government center, all ready to go – we unstole them from Syndicat, too, just so!"

"Convenient, so, my brother!" The two Phindians embraced tipsily, beaming their pleasure at this piece of irony.

The caff seemed unappealing, suddenly. Obi Wan set it aside, pressed the heel of one hand against his temple. "I see."

"Yes, and so will all our people," Paxxi enthused. "Newly restored comm system, so! Our first planetary broadcast will be the demolition. A tribute to new beginnings, true fact." He pounded a fist on the table, rattling the carafe of dark liquid, splattering droplets on Duena's clean linens. "Freedom for Phindar!"

"And no more freedom for Paxxi, so!" his brother chortled.

"True, my brother, so! Alas!" the bridegroom-to-be happily wheezed.

"Obawan… you are looking like the picture of health – not so, I lie! Too much fermis last night, so?"

The young Jedi shook his head, and regretted it instantly. The room tilted, spun, and a splitting pressure erupted behind his eyes, setting his teeth to chattering. He gripped the arm held out to steady him.

"I …ah…"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk – get away, you two. Here, silly boy, let me. Duena knows what to do, Come, come… Guerra! Paxxi! Get back here. Help an old woman for once, here now."

"No, Duena, I don't .." _Cheering. Gouts of fire. Thunder and lightning. Screams of despair. _The Force. Center. Breathe. The pressure lessened, the world righted itself upon its axis. A small piece of time went missing… and then he was squinting up into the worried face of Duena, mournful orange eyes peering into his with a melancholic resignation, one hand stroking his damp forehead.

"Always the same for the Renewed, so!" she sighed, to herself. "Painful to see, I do not lie. Poor chick, they did you the same as my poor lost daughter. Here, you rest, so! And feel better for the wedding."

He nodded, curled onto his side upon the soft whatever it was beneath him, his hand slipping between his tunics to find the river stone. Its heat warmed the hand that grasped it, crawled up his arm, spread through his aching body, melted away both pain and the _bad feeling_ that loomed on his horizon, a black thunderhead promising deluge to come.

Duena stroked and hummed a tuneless lullaby, and eventually her rasping old voice blurred into the warm river of Light, and was lost in its infinite depths.

* * *

Qui Gon Jinn hissed between his teeth.

Had his Padawan been here, been permitted access to these files, he might have complained of a _bad feeling,_ a nameless dread too vague to describe or pinpoint. He glowered at the scrolling records on his datapad, cunningly wired into the Syndicat main computer banks. The number of citizens that had been renewed over the years of the Syndicat's reign was staggering – far in excess of the estimate given him by the Derida brothers when he and Obi Wan had first arrived on route to Gala.

Political prisoners had been renewed as a matter of routine; but there were other programs in place, outside the capitol. Entire "camps" had been surreptitiusly established for the purpose of conduting research on the electropulsor brain-washing techniques. Casualties – marked in the emotionless reports as _negative outcomes-_ had been devastating. Early versions of the droid routinely killed their victims; improved models only reduced them to gibbering vegetables. The Mark VII machine had driven scores of Phindians permanently mad. Only in recent applications had the Syndicat succeeded in producing a successfully "renewed" individual.

He exhaled slowly. It had been a blessing that Obi Wan had been subjected to the fine-tuned version, not its predecessors.

Test subjects had been routinely released into foreign environments and tracked with probe droids. According to the Phindian populace, this was a form of cruel sport; but the official correspondence told another tale. The planned releases had been controlled tests of implanted trigger conditioning. The "renewed" Phindians were expected to respond in a pre-determined fashion to a particular phrase or event. At the time of the tyrants' overthrow, this phase of research had also hit a blockade: the conditioned subjects routinely failed to obey the implanted impulse, most often exhibiting sudden and decisive suicidal behaviors rather than those intended by their manipulators.

He disconnected the 'pad and sat, stunned, for a stretch of minutes. The Force churned with the afterimages of malice, but gave no clear insight. Such sustained and cold-blooded abuse of life, of sentience, left a hollow chill within the universal currents; he felt it pierce his lungs, coil round his spine. Behind Syndicat were other powers: technological guilds, corporate money, unregulated scientific laboratories. And behind these, Darkness – distant, apocalyptic.

The ten thousand worlds groaned, too heavy a burden to rest upon even Qui Gon;s broad shoulders. He grasped the hilt of his 'saber, and sought refuge in the Force, in the simple and particlar and growing and laughing and alive. The crushing weight of _conspiracy_ he set aside, for a little while longer, feeling suddenly an urge to speak to Dooku, as he had once, with open trust, student to master. The wheeling patterns of cunning, the incestuous nest of wicked investors in this scheme, were matters best left to those who patrolled the shadows, the boundaries between peace and chaos.

For his part, he preferred to tend the Force's garden, its Republic, its yet-unsullied crown and glory. And to teach his Padawan those mysterious and humble arts, the Force's salutary, time-revered ways. Let Dooku and his cowled minions deal with this realm of nebulous intent, unholy alliance. He would be content with whatever living part was granted him to play, whatever small role was proportionate to his limited understanding and strength. The Force had all his service, unto death, but he was not fool enough to suppose himself the galaxy's chosen savior.

He stood, and went to tend that which was within his power.

* * *

Nightmare. Always nightmare, since he could remember. Even in the crèche, in Ali Alaan's clan, he had been bombarded by nightmare. A Jedi did not complain of _fair_ or _unfair, _ did not chafe beneath the burdens imposed by fate, by the Force; he accepted, he _adapted,_ he grew wise in the yoke of affliction. But the harrowing dreams and visions had been worse since Phindar, and this one was _terrible-_ more so because he knew with conscious lucidity that it was vision and shadow-play, and yet could not pull away.

There were crowds – seething mobs, firebeetle hordes of people shouting, whistling, screaming their joy, shaking the air, rending it with their cacophonous hollering and pounding of feet. And with their joy, in successive waves, anger built, desperation and pain, until he needed to escape the sheer suffocating volume of the crowds, their voices that bore into his eardrums, into his temples, into his mind. Their voices were the Phindian mind wipe droid searing into his nerves, white fire blazing behind his eyes. And the voices were the Sentinels, one pinning his wrists, one holding his face, their voices soft and soothing but their _minds _turning him inside out, raking through his memories and emotions as even the Syndicat had not been able. And their voices were his own voice yelling hoarsely for the noise to cease, for the droid to be taken away, soon soon before he passed out, for the Shadows to stop murmuring words of comfort even as they eviscerated his psyche, for Qui Gon, because he wasn't there – not on Phindar in the cell, not in the Temple with Syfo-Dyas, not now when the maniacal bedlam of the crowds threatened to break through his last wall, batter its way into his soul and _command_ him to… to….

"Aauuuugh!" He would _not_ do that, he could not it was too horrific, he refused, he begged not to do it… but the throbbing insistence of the crowd melded into a single voice, an imperious, overbearing _need_ that seized his visceral core, clamped cold about every nerve, pulsed in breath and blood. It was the urgency of _panic, _ of the wild animal passions, the mindless stampeding desperation of the herd – that which he had been taught since infancy to _eschew, _to reject. It was a rising flood of adrenaline and terror and irrational, incontrovertible certainty, and it crested high over his last defense, a crushing tidal wave of authority, chanting _obey, obey, obey._

"Obi Wan!"

The voice-leviathan thundered louder: Obey. Obey.

"Padawan! Wake up!" There was authority in that voice, too. Not collective, boundless, infinite. Not impersonal. Not smooth as oiled prevarication, soft as fleeting shadow. It was singular, distinct, warm, fluid yet slightly husky, full of life and experience and the Force. Light. Grounding.

The mob clutched at him, pulled him under, drowned all other thought: Obey. Obey.

"Obi Wan. Wake up _now._ That's an order."

He scrabbled toward consciousness. His eyes cracked open. "Master." The word formed, but no sound came out. The million-fold command of the Voice crashed overhead, pounding down in fury upon him. He clung to Qui Gon, as to the sole island in a raging flood. The Force was unspeakable turmoil, breathtaking power. The voices seethed and broke around the Jedi master's presence, flowing onward, unable to sweep him away, and passed, trickling into the serene currents again, burbling streamlets of Light, dancing ripples in the universal life.

"Force's sake," the Jedi master murmured, almost reverently.

"Master." He tried to speak again, but his throat seemed to be numb, as though he had been screaming for a long time. Perhaps he had.

A large hand settled against his cheek. "Peace." The tentative touch of Qui Gon's mind was reassuring, bedrock.

_I think… I think I'm not quite right, master._

The tall man's chuckle was bittersweet. "I gathered that much myself, Padawan. Can you sit up?"

"When – when is the wedding? Have I missed it?" His voice was a rasping whisper.

"No, no," Qui Gon assured him. "It's going to begin in a few minutes. Are you sure you –"

"I'm going! I want to attend. Master." Deep breath. "Please."

A pair of keen grey eyes looked straight through him, but Qui Gon merely nodded his reluctant permission. "Very well. Stay close. A wedding, young one, is a perilous undertaking indeed."


	7. Chapter 7

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 7: Gentle Lull**

* * *

Joyful music floated on the warm noon-day air; banners fluttered in the light breeze, long pennants set atop the circle of pavilions in the capitol's one surviving park. The hubbub of the expectant crowd was a meaningless texture of overlapping sounds, confusing the individual mutterings and exclamations into a harmless tapestry of nonsense.

Obi Wan was glad for this, though he could not say why.

Qui Gon carved a path for them through the milling Phindian guests; the Padawan followed on his heels, feeling the anticipatory shudders in the Force, the vibrant sparks and flares of interest, of happiness, of curiosity. Jedi gatherings were solemn affairs: funeral, Council meeting, life day, Knighting… all had a similar tenor, a deep and thrumming basso continuo underpinning whatever emotion might lurk discreetly beneath. This was, by contrast, intoxicating. Untrammeled. He wasn't sure what to make of its exotic _flavor._

"Obi Wan."

He hurried to close the distance between himself and the tall Jedi master, slipping between two gossiping aunts to stand beside his mentor. Guerra had positioned them in a place of honor, among the family gathered at the front of the waiting audience.

In the park's very center, circled by the pale tents full of eager witnesses, Paxxi Derrida stood, arrayed in a fantastic garment of clashing geometrical bands. His chest puffed out with pride, his eyes shone with a pitch of nervous tension similar to a skysailer at the moment of jumping off a cliff. Beside him waited some sort of official or clergyman, an older Phindian sporting a cumbersome conical headdress and a long robe of office.

"Master, where is Kaadi? Is it some kind of test?"

Qui Gon's mouth quirked. "The _test,_ I believe, comes with the passing years. No, the bride is on her way. Watch."

The guests parted, in a murmuring wave, to leave a narrow aisle open between them, a canyon of happy, peering faces and waving hands, leading from outside the circle to its very center. Into this living road entered Kaadi, crowned and veiled, and a bevy of frolicksome younger relatives, purportedly playing the role of handmaidens or escort. Their attempts at dignity were ill-fated; they skipped and cavorted about the young Phindian woman, soiling the hems of their clothing and grinning wildly in delight. Obi Wan frowned: _crechelings_ in the Temple knew better how to hold still and proceed in quiet deference. But there was a certain contagious energy to the spectacle. He found himself fidgeting and instantly quelled the impulse.

"I don't understand the veil. He already knows her."

"It's symbolic. I thought Tahl explained this to you?"

"She said I must ask _you_ about sundering the veil."

The tall man raised an eyebrow. "_Think_ about it, Padawan."

He blushed violently. "Oh."

Paxxi lifted the many layers of fine gauzy material obscuring his bride's face, evoking a mad cheer of approval from the crowd. The elder Phindian in the outlandish hat moved forward and began the formalities, while the guests babbled and whispered among themselves, paying little attention to the ceremony's intricacies.

"Should they not be _listening?"_

Qui Gon laid a hand on his shoulder. "Relax. They only care that the thing is done properly, not what details it may involve. An ingrained habit of Phindian culture, one which allows them to overlook trivialities such as professional unstealing."

Obi Wan pondered this.

"Padawan, it is rude to entertain weighty thoughts at a wedding."

"I'm sorry, master."

Vows were exchanged; hands tied together; blessings bestowed. Beside them, Guerra Derrida twisted his hands together. "Oh, my poor brother!" he moaned. "Not so! I lie – happy I am, for him, true fact. Kaadi is a treasure, better than anything we have unstolen together."

Duena wept copiously, patting her aged cheeks with a voluminous handkerchief.

"Oh, my heart, ready to break, true fact! Little Paxxi, tiny baby all grown up and having a family of his own. Many grandchildren he better produce for me, so! He is lucky to have found Kaadi, who will tolerate him." The Derida matriarch waved a gnarled finger beneath the young Jedi's nose. "A woman that will not hesitate to whip her man is a blessing, true fact. Much needed." She harrumphed, emphatically.

Obi Wan sent a fleeting wave of droll amusement to Qui Gon, across their bond.

The tall man glanced down at him politely. "How is that saber burn of yours healing?' he inquired, deadpan.

The guests burst into riotous applause and shouting as the wedding solemnities came to their conclusion. Paxxi and Kaadi beamed and waved in the center of their overjoyed families, and the musicians immediately set to work again, adding to the overall chaos. The crowd surged forward, pell-mell, and Qui Gon nudged his apprentice sideways out of the crush before they were trampled by the congratulatory swell.

"Now what happens? Is there a party?"

"What a debaucher you've become, Obi Wan. I can see it will take much harsh discipline to restore your virtue."

The Padawan grimaced. "You haven't even let me sample the _fermis."_

"But a Jedi does not crave such wanton distractions."

A sigh. "Yes, master."

Guerra Derida, whose happiness on his brother's behalf danced in the Force like the merry flame of a candle, detached himself from the throng and chivvied his Jedi friends along the main promenade leading back to his family home.

"Hurry, hurry," he urged them. "Get away fast – the women are doing their traditions, so! Throwing coins to see what poor fellow is the next victim. Better not to be in plain sight, no lie!"

Obi Wan stayed close to Qui Gon. Weddings were, as his master had said, perilous affairs, and he was still learning the ways of the Force. The Jedi master, as always, seemed implacably calm, even in the face of this alarming pronouncement.

"Also, first come first serve for eating, so!" their host enthused. "And drinking, true fact."

"And dancing?" Qui Gon queried.

"Yes, so! Always much dancing at a Phindian wedding, no lie! I will teach you myself, Obawan, I am a marvel to behold... not so, I lie! But the young people, they will all take part, so! You should join."

"Master, I don't think-"

"Nonsense, Padawan. Dancing is not prohibited by the Code."

"But I don't –"

"Obi Wan. Remember this is an educational experience for you. I want you to partake in the festivities, so you can better understand their cultural implications. Such knowledge will serve you well as a future diplomat."

Obi Wan's mouth thinned mutinously.

"Besides, you are a beautiful dancer."

"I _hardly_ think so, master."

"Just pretend you're sparring with Padawan Tachi."

Qui Gon and Guerra burst into hearty laughter as their young counterpart deliberately lengthened his stride, leaving them a significant distance behind as he stalked toward the house with severe Jedi dignity, neck and ears flushing a brilliant crimson.

* * *

Duena had outdone herself in the matter of comestibles. Every available table in the Derida household, and each of several others borrowed from amiable neighbors for the occasion, was laden to breaking-point with every imaginable masterpiece of Phindian cuisine. Obi Wan had no idea what half the enticing dishes were named, nor of what they had been concocted, nor what strange and alluring blend of spices and sauces combined to lay pleasant siege to his senses. But _feast, _or _banquet, _seemed insufficient words to describe the lavish cornucopia of offerings laid out for the wedding guests' delectation.

"I hope I need not remind you what Master Seva said regarding _moderation_ in all things," Qui Gon said, raising an eyebrow at the vast complement of foodstuffs piled on his apprentice's plate.

"No, master – and I intend to exercise moderation with regard to each and every one of these things," the Padawan replied, shamelessly balancing another breadroll atop his hecatomb offering to the god of appetite.

They found their seats, and joined the feasting throng. The Phindians were as boisterous as ever, their table manners as broad and undemanding as every other aspect of their culture. There was much banging of utensils and guffawing, and a great many return trips to the buffet, a feat of gluttony which even Obi Wan did not dare attempt. Guerra, seated beside his Jedi guests, and diligently engaged in the business of stuffing himself senseless, beamed and nodded greetings to relatives and friends who passed the head table.

"Paxxi owes his happiness to me, true fact," he confided in Qui Gon. "I introduced him to Kaadi, and he has never paid me the matchmaking fee, so!"

"Matchmaking fee?"

"Yes, Obawan, everybody knows this. Good way to make a fortune, so! Sell your brother into bondage, cash in, no lie. How do Jedi arrange these things? Strict rules, so?"

The Padawan blinked. "No matchmaking for us, Guerra. We don't – that is to say –"

Qui Gon came to his rescue. "There are some things too fraught with difficulty even for Jedi. Marriage is one of them."

The Phindian howled with laughter and upset his drink onto the dining table's cloth. "Oh, Jedi Gon, you will be the death of me someday… not so, I lie! And here is Kaadi, come to meet her new family. Kaadi, you are my sister now, true fact!"

He rose and embraced his new sister-in-law, their two pair of long arms wrapped about each other in mutual, ferocious affection.

"And Jedi Gon! Obawan!" The new bride graced the Jedi with a parsec-wide smile. "So glad I am to see you here! Guests from off-planet, so! Said to bring good luck to the couple, friends in high places, so!"

Qui Gon inclined his head. "May you and Paxxi always be blessed with good friends."

Kaadi was deliriously happy. "And Obawan, hero to Phindar, so! Save a dance for me, Jedi friend. Paxxi will kill you from jealousy…. Not so, I lie! But if you don't, I will die of a broken heart – not so, I am a terrible liar, Paxxi is my one true love, so!"

The Padawan sorted through this tangled web of statements. "I would by no means occasion Paxxi any grief," he said, wondering whether mind-tricking a newlywed at her own wedding reception would qualify as _abuse _ of power.

"If I am not happy, Paxxi will not be happy, so!" Kaadi declared. "Save us both from woe, Obawan, and promise!"

The young Jedi ground his teeth. Apparently there was no diplomatic solution to _this_ dilemma. "I… I would be honored," he stammered.

Kaadi bestowed a melting smile upon both of them and flounced away to greet her other guests, the flamboyant bustle of her dress shimmying merrily away between the nearby tables.

"I hope you're satisfied, master," Obi Wan groused.

"You'd better enjoy your last meal, Padawan."

* * *

"So!" Paxxi grinned, sitting beside his brother and laying into the first of three heaping platefuls, "A moment of peace! Kaadi is with the women for a moment, and I can eat!"

Guerra snatched a stray sweetbun from his sibling's platter. "So, my brother! Better go lightly… not so, I lie! Many ordeals ahead, so! Kaadi, she has told me she will put you on a diet tomorrow!"

"Not so! You lie!" Paxxi choked.

"My brother, when have I ever lied to you?" Guerra's mouth turned down in mock sorrow. "So! You break my heart! But you are needing a trim-down, true fact! And Kaadi, she is unrelenting, so!"

Paxxi sighed and shoveled his vittles in faster. "Many burdens a husband must bear, Jedi Gon, I do not lie," he muttered.

"It sounds to me as though Kaadi wishes to relieve you of your burdens," Obi Wan observed.

The Phindian pounded a fist on the table, uproariously. "So! Obawan, you are a sly one, no lie. She will unburden me until there is nothing left. True fact! But I love her, so! There is no hope for me."

Guerra chortled. "Better you than my, oh my brother."

Paxxi waved a hand at the Jedi. "Lucky, you are, Jedi, that you do not practice marriage. Less work for you with the ladies, so!"

Qui Gon raised a brow. "How so?"

The Phindian leaned forward on both elbows. "Simple, true fact! Women: they are not satisfied with what they have, and they want what they cannot have. No lie! This is how I wooed Kaadi: by pretending I did not care about her."

"Very cunning," the Jedi master remarked blandly.

"So! I must have brains to deal with a wife such as my lovely Kaadi! But you Jedi – off limits, so instantly desirable! So! Do not abuse that power when you are older, Obawan! Not fair to the rest of us, so!"

"So!" Guerra agreed. "Obawan will have queens and duchesses pining for him, nothing left over for attractive fellows like us, … not so, I lie!"

"…Master?"

Qui Gon winked at his bemused student. "I shall be sure to take any unwanted suitors off his hands," he promised.

The Phindians roared, while Obi Wan opted to turn his attention back to eating. Some mysteries were not worth pursuing.

* * *

It was _nothing_ like sparring with Siri Tachi, whatever Master Qui Gon might think. Besides being taller and considerably heftier in girth, Kaadi was clearly a believer in power and aggression rather than speed and accuracy. By the time she had dragged her chosen partner around the wide dance floor several times, much as a pair of haywire podracing engines might haul their featherweight burden behind them, she was flushed with exertion and bliss, the artfully arranged flowers in her crown starting to droop.

"So!" She exclaimed. "I would like to keep you forever, Obawan, but Paxxi he will not tolerate it, so! See, here he comes now to kill you - not so, I lie!"

Obi Wan was privately relieved to hand the boisterous Phindian over to her deserving husband. "Paxxi," he bowed, relinquishing all claim to Kaadi's attentions.

"Always coming to the rescue," the Phindian winked at him. "I may call upon you again soon. Too much dancing for me – I must save my strength or my heart will give way before Kaadi is done with me! SO!"

Several others in the vicinity bellowed their loud appreciation of this joke. The young Jedi felt its hidden meaning slide just beyond the scope of his experience.

Paxxi pounded him on the back, the scent of _fermis_ already on his breath. "We do not all possess Jedi stamina, friend, true fact. But Kaadi, my love, I am willing to die trying, just so!"

More raucous applause. Obi Wan frowned, and slipped away, in search of less equivocal and drunken conversation.

"There you are. You cut a very dashing figure. Master Yoda would have been proud."

"Master!" Color drained from the Padawan's face. "You wouldn't!"

"Ah, young one, who is to say I did not maneuver you into such a performance just to garnish blackmail material?"

Obi Wan sat, defeated. "I have much to learn," he sulked.

"And it is a pleasure to teach you," Qui Gon chuckled in reply.

* * *

The long-awaited cake was cut and served at last, the enticing aroma of _ch'xlatl_ pervading the entire house, subtle yet irresistible.

Qui Gon waved a magnanimous hand. "Go, Padawan. This is a fitting occasion for some small indulgence. And Duena will truly be offended if you do not rave and compose an encomium upon her skills."

"Yes, master, I shall do my duty."

Duena, who had appointed herself high priestess over the rite, served him a piece of the delicacy that far exceeded the bounds of "small indulgence." Obi Wan was loathe to commit a diplomatic blunder, so he accepted the offering with good grace.

"And here, Obawan, take some for Jedi Gon, too. My recipe is strong enough even for graybeards, so! Know this, I do, from experience. Why else do you think I have so many children, so?"

"Ah… thank you." He was beginning to perceive the manifold perils of a wedding; as usual, Master Qui Gon had been right. One could easily stray into deep waters here – part of him wondered whether the whole occasion were not some kind of test, but Master had also said not to entertain weighty thoughts, so he set this line of speculation aside and wandered back to the table where the tall Jedi sat serenely watching the Phindian revelry erupting all around him.

"Master. Duena sends you this dessert, with her compliments."

'"She is kind. And have you sampled this rare treat?"

The Padawan applied himself to the task, and was rewarded accordingly.

"It's… I …"

"It's rendered you speechless. And here I thought that was impossible," Qui Gon smiled. "Dare I hope the side effect will be permanent?"

It was a vain hope. "I think we ought to take some back to the Temple, master. For cataloguing in the Archives."

"Oh?"

The Padawan smirked. "Yes, master. And perhaps you ought also to bring a small souvenir to Master Tahl."

Qui Gon's eyes narrowed, even as the corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily. "Indeed?"

The smirk translated into the Force as rollicking amusement.. "Since you share so many scholarly interests, master."

_Imp. _"A fine idea. I shall be sure to tell her that it was _your_ suggestion."

Obi Wan swallowed his next bite with difficulty.

"Was there something you wished to add, Padawan?"

"No, master," the boy choked out, much subdued.

* * *

The sun had long ago set; yet the Phindians displayed no inclination to cease their wild disporting.. Most were too engrossed in the celebration of Paxxi and Kaadi's marriage to notice that the principal players had discreetly exited some hours ago, to enjoy their first hours together alone. Libations circulated faster than counterfeit currency in a Huttese gambling den; dancing and shouting and general mayhem shook the Force into a confetti-whirlwind of emotions and half-formed thoughts.

And yet, Qui Gon observed with a dry chuckle, his apprentice was visibly drooping.

"You're tired," he remarked, kindly. "Perhaps it is time for us to take our leave."

The boy's eyelids jerked open. "No, master, I'm perfectly awake.."

The Jedi master's brows rose, but he let the obvious untruth pass without argument.

'Jedi," a wheezing voice accosted them. They looked up into the wizened face of the Phindian minister, or holy man. The comical headdress still teetered precariously atop his bald skull. "It is a rare occasion to meet anyone of your Order, so!"

Qui Gon inclined his head politely, and the elder took this as invitation to join them.

"Is it true," their interlocutor inquired earnestly, leaning forward in a collegial manner, "That you Jedi despise all pleasures of the flesh?"

Qui Gon felt his apprentice's swift flare of alarm, and shot him a humorous glance of encouragement. "Not at all," he replied, enigmatically. "We are simply most _discerning."_

The Phindian grinned at them. "No lie! And is it true that you steal babies, so? Because you have not children of your own?"

Again Qui Gon quelled his Padawan's rising outrage with a bland expression. He leaned back, contemplatively. "I don't know," he mused. "Do you have one to spare?"

Their new acquaintance shook with mirth. "So! You are a witty one, Jedi! No lie. Here." His hands fumbled for the nearest carafe of _fermis, _ and three small glasses. "Drink with me – no hard feelings, so?"

Qui Gon waved a hand. "There is no need," he suggested lightly.

The mind influence had no effect. The Phindian squinted at him sharply, shoving the delicate cups across the tabletop. "A toast! To ecumenism."

Obi Wan looked up, expectantly. But Qui Gon merely smiled and nudged the brimming vessel in his direction.

They drained their glasses in unison, satisfying the demands of religious tolerance and universal brotherhood, and the Phindian tottered contentedly on his way, the conical hat wobbling a dizzy path through the rowdy gathering.

"Well, Padawan? You've had your dearest wish granted. Was it all you hoped for and more?"

Obi Wan made a face of disgust, lip curling back. "It's…_awful,"_ he complained. "Why is everyone so bent on _drinking _it?"

The tall man only chuckled. "Let that be a lesson to you."

* * *

When the Phindians broke into the resounding chorus of a favorite cheerful folk song, scores of voices raised in dissonant unison, words slurring into incomprehensible smears of sound, Qui Gon decided to stand upon authority.

"Time to go," he told his apprentice..

Obi Wan blearily obeyed, too weary to muster any resistance. They trudged through the back entrance and wandered toward Duena's tiny hovel. Behind them the Phindians belted out the refrain to their song, a jumble of drunken voices yodeling a collective _trololololo_ into the night's blanketing silence. The din, and the sharp night air, slapped a last bit of vitality into the dazed Padawan.

'So. That is a wedding," he declared, philosophically.

"Yes," Qui Gon agreed. "It ought to be enough to last you a lifetime."

"I'm glad we came. Is that … appropriate?"

He stopped, peered at his young charge under the silver light of Phindar's one visible moon. "What makes you say that?"

A shrug. "It's just… very different. Unbalancing."

"That might be the _fermis,"_ Qui Gon theorized, brushing two fingers over the boy's temple to confirm this diagnosis, and then giving the dangling learner's braid a light tug. "We will meditate before sleep."

"They seemed very happy. I could feel it. But most of them have no knowledge of the Force."

He sighed. Leave it to Obi Wan to brood in the midst of unrestrained merry-making. "This _is_ their knowledge of the Living Force. Those who cannot see directly sometimes perceive in reflections or echoes. Perhaps they are not so deprived as you think."

The Padawan chewed on that for a short while. The song finally ended, subsiding into chatter and murmuring. A breeze rose and toyed with their cloak hems. "But then…. are we deprived?"

"What do you think?"

The young Jedi stared back at the house. They stood just outside the circle of light cast by its open windows, just beyond the warmth of its interior. "I think," he said at last, with slow deliberation, "That it depends very much on your point of view."

"Very wise," the tall master concurred, leading them onward again.

Obi Wan looked up at the stars, the galaxy's spangled arm draped languidly across the ecliptic. "Do you think you would have been married, master? I mean, were you not a Jedi?"

"There is no _if,_ Obi Wan. I would not be myself were I not a Jedi."

"I know," the Padawan insisted. "But would you have?"

The tall man snorted. "You are _very_ tired, young one."

"But _would _you, master?"

They paused, mid stride. Qui Gon looked down into a very young and earnest face and decided that it was far too late at night – far too early in the morning – for complete honesty. "Ah. I confess," he smiled. "I should undoubtedly have a large harem. For the good of the galaxy, you understand."

His apprentice frowned repressively. "I think you've had too much cake, master."

A few more silent paces brought them to the cottage door, where a soft light glowed welcome. "And you've had too much time to think and not enough rest. Come."

They left the revels, and the difficult questions, to find their own proper conclusions in due and appropriate time.

* * *

An hour later, after their customary ablutions and a short meditation, as the Phindian party wore its way toward a cheerful pre-dawn ending, and the sky gradually lightened with the promise of a new day, Qui Gon watched his apprentice sleep. The boy looked to his inner eye no older than ten, as he had when they had first met, and yet also burdened with cares far in excess of his fourteen standard years. Yoda had often remarked upon this strange paradox: Jedi younglings often retained their core of innocence far longer than their ordinary counterparts, while at the same time aging at an alarming rate. The Force, the ancient master was fond of asserting, was no nursemaid.

The Jedi master reflected that perhaps he had consumed a trifle too much cake and _fermis._ Sentimentality was a bad sign. He closed his eyes and rested in the Force, gathering its strength, fortifying himself against the storm which he felt gathered over the next day's glowing horizon.

They had wished their friends well…. But he knew, with the surety of deep and unsettling instinct, that Phindar was not yet done with them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 8: Deluge**

Qui Gon Jinn woke to the sound of his apprentice hitting the floor with a muffled thump.

A heartbeat later he was sitting upright, squinting in the late morning light spearing through the uneven window shades of Duena's guest bedroom. "Obi Wan."

The sudden impact with an unyielding floor had jolted the young Jedi into wakefulness, too; he pushed up onto his knees and gazed blearily at Qui Gon, raising one hand to rub at the back of his neck.

"Nightmare?" the master inquired.

A nod of affirmation. Several deep centering breaths.

"Vision?"

"No," the Padawan rasped. "Just the usual nonsense. Falling from a massive cliff. Into a lake of _fermis, _ this time. That 's a nice twist." He shrugged nonchalantly, clambered to his feet, stretched into a full backbend. "Uuuuuuuu_uuuuunnnngh._ Force, that's good_." _ He sprang upright. "I'm fine, master. Now that we're not falling anymore. Is there breakfast?"

The tall man snorted softly. Perhaps it would not be such an ominous day after all. "I don't think a soul is awake in the big house, but I'm sure Duena can find us some tea."

* * *

"It does not make light morning reading," Qui Gon warned his apprentice, who sat cross-legged upon Duena's low sleep mat, intently perusing the Syndicat records the Jedi master had copied the previous day.

"No," Obi Wan agreed distractedly, brows beetling together further and further as he read through the history of neurological experimentation undertaken at the expense of Phindar's citizenry. "This is awful. Worse than we initially supposed, master."

The tall Jedi set aside his empty tea cup. "Unfortunately, that is often the case. As peacekeepers we are frequently called upon to address the last and most desperate symptoms of tyranny or imbalance… but so often there are long and tragic stories already in place before Jedi intervention arrives."

"And we weren't even officially assigned to Phindar. How much longer might this have gone on had Guerra and Paxxi not hijacked our ship?" He hesitated, frowning. "It seems our presence was a mere coincidence – that the Syndicat might well have continued on with their abominations, unhindered - for decades, even."

Qui Gon shook his head. "There is no such thing as a mere coincidence. It was the will of the Force that we be present on Phindar at the moment we were – you must have more confidence in the mysterious causes that underlie our actions and choices. The Syndicat would not have been… permitted.. to rule indefinitely."

The Padawan mulled this over in silence. He placed the datapad beside him, somberly. "I see now what the Sentinels were so concerned about," he said quietly. "I should not have been so angry with them."

"Suspicions, whether well grounded or not, do not justify extreme precautions," the Jedi master replied. "Though you should not harbor anger, I am unwilling to excuse them."

The boy ran a hand through his short hair. "But what if they are right? What if…" He pointed to the datapad, "_This_ is what that mind wipe droid was all about? What if I'm… compromised?"

Obi Wan's expression was one of abstracted distaste, but Qui Gon knew better. "You are a Jedi, Obi Wan. You cannot be truly compromised so long as the Force is with you. And it will always be, so long as you keep your face turned to the Light."

The Padawan nodded, once, though there was an edge of dissatisfaction to his quiet.

"You must not fret, young one. If there is some… trial… to be faced, then we will face it together when the time comes, with the aid of the Force. You can do little to prevent such an eventuality, if indeed you have been somehow affected, and you can do _nothing_ about it by brooding in anticipation."

This was better, and it earned him a fleeting smile.

"Let us continue with the investigation," Qui Gon suggested. " If we can determine what power or influence lies behind the Syndicat, we can perhaps contribute to the downfall of the larger evil – and prevent this travesty from happening again elsewhere, to other innocents."

And that was a trump card, the winning argument. Obi Wan's face hardened into fierce determination. Never mind himself; he would _throw_ everything he had at the hidden malice lurking behind the scheme; do _anything_ to protect others from the same suffering.

Qui Gon withdrew the data chits Valorum had entrusted to his keeping, and solemnly handed the small case to his apprentice. "I have here the lists of scientific research funding granted by the Telosian government in recent years. The Archives computer has already cross- indexed them to other known organizations and names. If you can find anything that suggests a connection between this Syndicat operation and a wider network, then you will truly have done the galaxy a service."

"I'll find it," Obi Wan promised.

"Good." He rose and left the young Jedi to it. The best remedy for melancholy was hard work; and in some ways this _was_ Obi Wan's battle. With the scheduled demolition of the Syndicat headquarters by the Phindian government, the investigation on this world would be brought to an effective halt; but if they could forge a link to some wider plot, it was possible that the villains responsible might eventually be apprehended and punished. He was aware that the Council had turned the inquiry over to the Sentinels… but that did not mean that he was personally ready to relinquish it yet.

* * *

"Oh, Jedi Gon! Good morning to you. Too fine a day to waste on sleeping, so?"

Duena was scratching about in her straggling garden, uprooting weeds with the efficiency of a veteran bounty hunter.

The tall Jedi drew in a great lungful of the warm air, gazed approvingly at the bright sun, already high overhead.

"Those lazy bantha-heads better get up soon, true fact!" Duena muttered, with a jerk of her head in the direction of the big house. "Paxxi's inauguration later today, so, and they better be there. All of Phindar will be crowding the courtyards, so. Coming, you and Obawan, are, so?"

"Of course. We shall gladly attend." He bowed.

The ancient Phindian clapped soil from her wrinkled hands and huffed her way upright, knees creaking. "My one son married _and_ governor, my other son still a rascal," she sighed. "But better rascal than dead, is this not so, Jedi Gon?"

_Xanatos. _He forced a smile. "In most cases, yes."

"I am too old for such silliness… not so, I lie!" Duena mournfully picked up her spades and other tools, stuffed them in a stained knapsack. "So much to celebrate, and here I am thinking of the sad past, so. I wish their sister could have been here, true fact."

"I am sorry for your loss," the Jedi said quietly. "Joy and grief often keep company together."

Duena's aged head dipped. She fixed the Jedi master with a knowing look. "So, Jedi Gon. You are not as old as me, so – but old enough to understand this. Phindar is old enough to learn this, too. We are happy for our freedom, true fact… but so many poor Lost ones – one in every family, no lie! Scars for generations."

_Xanatos._ Joy and grief did indeed keep company together. "May they bring you wisdom," he sighed.

The Phindian matriarch shuffled toward her hovel, casting him a last and penetrating glance. "So, Jedi Gon. You do not lie."

* * *

"Master." Obi Wan was brimming with suppressed excitement.

"You've found something."

"Possibly." Which was the equivalent of triumphal crowing in anyone else.

"Let us see, then."

"Here." The Padawan pulled up the relevant files on the 'pad. "Look at this. Here are payments made by the Telosian government to a laboratory research foundation called Arbor Biogenetic Foundation, located _far_ out in the Rims… almost the Rishi Maze. And here is the schedule of quarterly reports made on the Renewal experimentation on Phindar. They match. _And," _ he added, pausing dramatically, "You will never guess for what this Arbor Foundation grant money was allocated."

Qui Gon's mouth thinned. "Behavioral conditioning?"

Obi Wan scrolled through a lengthy disclosure statement. "It _says_ for psycho-medicinal purposes, criminal rehabilitation, other unspecified _purely_ theoretical intentions. None of this is legal under Republic jurisdiction, is it?"

"No," the Jedi master mused. "But that does not mean much, especially when the facility is on the border of unincorporated space."

"Yes, master. Do you think this is significant?"

The Force resounded with cold certainty. "Yes," Qui Gon decided. "I'm afraid it is. Well done, Padawan. I fear Tahl may have a rival in the field of abstruse researches. You would do well not to boast about your exploits in front of her."

"I'll leave the _strutting _ to you, my master."

Qui Gon's blue eyes narrowed, but his apprentice projected a deceptive facade of youthful innocence and did not meet his gaze. "Hm." _One_ of them was growing a bit cocky, that much was clear.

"Ought we to bring this to the Phindian government's attention?" Obi Wan inquired, tactfully changing the subject in a wise spirit of self preservation.

"No," the tall man replied, after a moment's consideration. "It lies outside their power. Paxxi and his advisors will have sufficient burdens simply stabilizing this planet's economy and infrastructure. We shall report this discovery to the Council, and the Sentinels. A Jedi investigation is in order, I think."

"What about the victims of Renewal?" the boy pressed. "Surely their families would wish to know who was responsible for their suffering?"

Qui Gon smiled bitterly. "Not all such knowledge brings peace, Obi Wan. And we know nothing for certain, yet. While your compassion is commendable, it is best sometimes not to add to the burden of grief with further revelations." He paused. "Finding the proper way to deal with its past will be among the primary challenges of freedom, for Phindar."

The Force shifted, _exploded_ as though he had triggered a landmine. Obi Wan gasped, face abruptly attaining a ghastly pallor. Vertigo and migraine spread in woozy, rippling puddles across their bond.

"Padawan!" He nearly lurched himself, grasping at the boy's elbows to steady him.

"Ah… master…"

"Here, lie down. Breathe." Qui Gon infused the churning sea with calm, drawing upon his own rooted center, channeling pain away, into the Force. But there was a great abysmal pool of it, welling from deep in his apprentice's psyche, a black and oozing wound. "Obi Wan. Focus."

"_Ahh…._ No! No! I won't!"

The master's own alarm stained the seething sea further. In the roaring of the Force, the drumming of his pulse, he heard the compulsive voice of a vast mob, of a reverberating command so overwhelming, so visceral, that it squeezed away breath, blacked out vision, stifled hearing. The boy arched backward, as though caught in the grip of a violent seizure, every muscle rigid with resistance, shaking with effort.

"….Qui Gon!" Hands clawed frantically into his arms, digging hard into flesh, twisting the cloth of his tunic sleeves. The Jedi master grunted, held firm to his own center while the storm raged, frenetic, about them.

At last, it ceased. Obi Wan's head lolled back, limp, and he collapsed in a sprawl on the floor, chest heaving, utterly spent.

"What was that?" the tall man asked, as his apprentice blinked dully up at him, eyes barely focused.

Obi Wan swallowed. A sudden squall rose in the hollow Force, a cloud spitting angry fire. The Padawan tensed. "Those Phindian _schuzzo!_" he snarled. "_Blast _ them! Blast them to the lowest Sith hell! _I hate them!"_

Qui Gon gripped his shoulders. "No, you do not," he warned. "Do not go that way."

The cloud expended its fire in an actinic blaze; rainfall came next. "I … I thought I _conquered_ it," Obi Wan choked out, jaw clenched. "I…I..master, I _failed!_ They…that droid…I ..I –"

"Hush." He brushed trailing moisture away. "The victim is not a failure. And you have not yet finished this contest. We have yet to see who will conquer."

Splendour broke through the cloud, in a blinding shaft. Obi Wan's smile was the ageless defiance of new dawn, pure arctic fire, a saber's blade in the midst of darkness. "I haven't lost. I'm just not winning at the moment."

Qui Gon chuckled, despite himself. "Exactly, Padawan." He pulled his apprentice into a sitting position. "Now. I think this might be a good time to practice those centering meditations. We have some time before the gubernatorial investiture."

* * *

The Order was millenia old, and millenia strong. It had its own traditions, its own legacies, its own wisdom, its own secrets. These were handed down with caution, with reverence, in due time and place, in the right circumstances, master to apprentice, in endless lineages, preserved, reinterpreted, flames of ancient knowledge kindling in present experience, renewed with each passing generation. Things that could be taught in words, committed to memory, were learned young in the protective shelter of the Temple. Those that could not – the great majority of the Way – were taught by example, bitter experience, direct apprenticeship.

The deep centering meditations were one of these things. Qui Gon felt a pang that such knowledge was called for so soon: generally reserved for use in time of terrible ordeal, or for healing in the aftermath of such a crisis, the extreme form of open meditation was not something commonly taught to a junior Padawan. But as BenTo Li had warned him, Obi Wan was like the omphalos stone he carried: a conduit of the Force, a beacon that seemed to attract both Light and Dark. He must be armed against the inevitable, albeit precociously.

"You will not _like_ this at first," the tall master cautioned him. "You may feel vulnerable, as when the Sentinels probed your mind. But remember that it is the Living Force to which you yield, not some other sentient being."

Obi Wan remained gravely listening.

"As a beginner, you should use an anchor. I would suggest your river stone, perhaps. Many Jedi would use their saber crystal for this purpose. Or another person, if need be."

"You."

"Yes – but I want you to be able to achieve this trance state without my presence. It is likely – in the future – that you would only need this form of meditation in the worst of conditions, and that means when you are alone with no ally but the Force itself."

His apprentice nodded, eyes wide and pensive.

"I used the river stone as an anchor before," he said. "Without understanding."

"Yes," Qui Gon agreed. "Which is how I know you are ready for this. In deep centering, you will withdraw your entire focus into the Force itself, without reservation. In essence, you throw yourself on the protection of the Force, yielding over conscious will and thought. There are deep-seated, instinctive inhibitions against such a thing, and for good reason; this is a technique to be used sparingly, and in time of desperate need. A master would not need an anchor; but for a beginner it provides a mooring, a line back to ordinary awareness."

Obi Wan turned the river stone over in his hand, frowning. "You think I need to learn this now, master?" he asked, soberly.

"I do," Qui Gon affirmed, not evading the implied admission that the situation was _serious._ "I would have taught you before, had I anticipated how dire your encounter with the Syndicat would prove to be."

"Better late than never," the Padawan muttered, wryly.

"Focus on the present moment," Qui Gon reminded him. "I will guide you." He moved to kneel directly behind his apprentice, hands on the boy's shoulders. Obi Wan sat before him, holding the river stone in one hand, eyes closed.

"I'm ready, master.'

"Then let us begin."

* * *

"Jedi friends! Can you not cure my headache with your powers, so?" Guerra wriggled his fingers in the air, in hopeful demonstration.

"No," Qui Gon Jinn placidly informed him.

"We are sworn to uphold justice," Obi Wan added.. "Not thwart it."

"It is good to see you, at such an early hour," Qui Gon smiled, ironically.

The Phindian pressed both hands over his ears. "So! You are both such tender, coddling fellows… not so, I lie! But still like you, I do, true fact."

"Have some caff," Obi Wan smirked. "It helps, as I recall."

Guerra despondently swallowed several cups of the tepid offering, cringing when Duena walked by, bestowing a withering look of disapproval upon her son, without deigning to say a word. "Oh, my mother, just as soft hearted as you Jedi – true fact!"

"Hurry up, so!" the matriarch called form the adjacent room. "Little time to get ready, no lie! Paxxi's inauguration in less than an hour, and you still half-drunk, Guerra. Proud you make me – not so, I lie!"

Her son threw both long arms in the air and looked beseechingly at the ceiling.

"Will you be appearing in the ceremony, Guerra?" Obi Wan inquired.

"So! A speech all ready, no lie! No hard feelings, I am glad my brother beat me in the election, and the people of Phindar must know this, so!You Jedi are to be at the front on the dais with my brother, too. Better for New Phindar, so."

"New Phindar?"

"So!" Guerra enthused. "A nice ring to it, true fact. Better than plain Phindar."

"Phindar good enough without extra frills, so!" Duena grumbled from the kitchen.

Her wayward heir rolled his eyes. "Why my brother insisted on having this inauguration the day after his wedding, I do not know!" he grouched. "Power hungry, Paxxi has become… not so, I lie! Kaadi's idea, so! It must be. Task-oriented, that woman is, true fact."

"A fine quality in the governor's wife," Qui Gon pointed out.

"Get ready, lazy-bantha-head, Guerra!" Duena shrilled.

"A fine quality in any woman… not so , I lie!" Guerra chuffed.. "Stop badgering me, so!" he hollered in the general direction of the kitchen. "I am ready in a moment, no lie. See you at the government center, Jedi friends."

* * *

"I have a bad feeling about this, master."

They stopped, halfway along the wide avenue leading to New Phindar's seat of government. The mind-wipe-droid-cum-statue loomed above them, its grotesque shadow splayed over the duracrete pedestrian walkway.

"I sense it, too." Qui Gon studied his apprentice carefully. "But we shall be mindful, and move forward."

Obi Wan already looked a bit peaked. "Yes, master."

"Perhaps you should not attend this ceremony."

The suggestion was met with a brazen defiance. "I'm coming."

"Not if I order you to remain behind."

Obi Wan stared at him, his cheeks scoured of color by some vast and nameless premonition, eyes bright with the same dark certainty. "You said that fear is not in a place. That we carry it within. So what good will it do to be _here_ or _there?"_

The Jedi master exhaled. A fair point, if delivered with a bit too much vehemence.

"It is also true _that a fool rushes to meet danger, while a wise man waits for it to call at his door._ "

The Padawan shifted, dropping his gaze to the purple silhoueete of the twisted statue above them, then lifting his gaze back to Qui Gon's. "I would rather be by your side, master," he confessed, quietly.

A wrenching heartbeat.

Qui Gon withdrew his hands from opposite sleeves and dropped to one knee. "Come here." He unclipped his saber from his belt and solemnly fastened it at Obi Wan's side. A pair of blue eyes widened in shock, then dawning comprehension. "This weapon is my life. You do not face this test alone, as you did the first time."

His apprentice bowed, wordlessly. A sunburst of gratitude broke in the Force, warmed between them. Qui Gon stood.

"Stay close," he ordered, and his smaller shadow moved along beside him, matching his long stride with hurried shorter ones, apprehension sharpening into resolve, dread dissolving into acceptance.

They were prepared. Though for what, they could not say.

* * *

New Phindar did not have offplanet funding to supplement its meager public coffers; and so, its government building was neither gleaming nor large. It was, in fact, the abandoned theater in a once prosperous sector of their business center.

"The Phidians were, as you might guess, once well-known for their satirical slapstick comedy," Qui Gon informed his student as they ascended the broad steps beneath the garish façade. The holoboard marquee had been repaired, and now flashed news of the impending Syndicat headquarters' demolition in bright, moving script, and an occasional illustrative explosion of neon colors.

A swelling crowd had gathered in the courtyard outside, an ocean of curious, patriotic Phindian faces peering as one at the small portico beneath which their new governor and a handful of officials and witnesses lingered. A gentle humming and murmuring filled the air as the audience chattered and muttered away. Obi Wan moved closer to Qui Gon; so close that their shoulders brushed. The tall man took note, but said nothing.

"Jedi!" Paxxi welcomed them. "Now we can begin- many tedious speeches. Not so, I lie! They elected me because I promised less talking than Guerra – not so, I am a terrible liar! Stand here, so! The hovercam needs to see you, true fact, or what is the point? Not so! I am glad to have you here anyhow, heroes and liberators of Phindar!"

"Did you not say we are due to begin?" Qui Gon nudged the Phindian's wandering mind.

"So! Just so, Jedi Gon! Are you sure you will not stay to be my chief aide? I will double your salary – not so, I lie! But good benefits, free caff and my charming company all day long, so! Who could resist such a job?"

The Jedi bowed, and the garrulous new governor ambled off to the podium at the center of the makeshift dais, ready to begin the first of his many tedious speeches. The crowd cheered wildly as he raised his arms in double salute.

"We shall witness the investiture and then return to Duena's home," Qui Gon promised his Padawan, who was staring stonily out over the gathered Phindians, white faced.

"It's coming," Obi Wan said under his breath, gripping the hilt of Qui Gon's saber as though it were the mast of a sinking ship.

"You will face it and overcome it when it does," Qui Gon assured him.

Paxxi launched into his acceptance speech with characteristic panache; his rhetorical style was a verbal echo of his daring and reckless piloting abilities. The audience urged him on with many hearty cheers of approval, occasionally drowning out his voice, a fact that in no way discouraged the new governor from continuing despite the clamor.

Obi Wan raised mental shields, melted into the Force, armored himself against the unknown until he had all but disappeared. Qui Gon, startled, turned his head to be sure the boy was still _there. _ He could sense no specific threat, no particular disturbance in the Force, no hostile presence… yet the diffuse premonition of danger whispered at the back of his mind, too. They fast approached a tipping-point, the moment of overbalancing, the heart-stopping instant before freefall. He tensed, exhaled, grounded himself in the Force beside his near-invisible student.

"And so!" Paxxi bellowed out over his adoring audience. "Today we begin a renewal of our own, so! Wipe away all traces of the Syndicat, that is what we shall do, just so! And rebuild what we have lost. Many hands needed to do this… I do not lie. But we are ready and we can do this, so! I am honored to be the governor of our beautiful homeworld, so! Just as I am honored to be born here with all my brothers and sisters. Today is a new day, today we are truly liberated, I do not lie."

The audience waited for its cue.

"Freedom for Phindar!" Paxxi bellowed, his voice magnified by the sound equipment, caught and taken up in the crowd's deafening repetition of the phrase. As with one voice, thousands cried out their passionate love for their homeworld, until the square, and the buildings, and the very air shook with a sonorous gong note of joy.

Qui Gon glanced down to offer his apprentice a half-smile –

-But Obi Wan had disappeared.


	9. Chapter 9

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 9: Eye of the Storm**

* * *

_Freedom for Phindar. Freedom for Phindar._

In the blazing labyrinth of despair, that place where searing, pulsing, blinding fire had branded its command, scrawled its mandate in obscene letters burned through nerve and cell, carved its will into the deepest recessed of psyche, these words transformed into others:

_Death for Phindar. Destruction for Phindar._

Obi Wan descended the stairs, the dusty halls of the theater's basement level. The Force rose to meet him, a suffocating wall. He pushed through it, choking on his own breath. Light grabbed at his heels, snagged the hem of his cloak, raked at hair and skin, dragged at his bones. He gritted his teeth and wrestled past his own recalcitrance, frustrated and irked by the invisible obstacle.

Pain drove him. And the Voice, that incontrovertible chanting, that pounding of will against his defenses. Thousands had proclaimed their desire: _freedom for Phindar._ He would give it to them, fulfill their dearest wish. _Death for Phindar._

But that wasn't right. It was… that was…

Pain seized his skull and threw him, headlong, into the wall. He slumped down, sliding toward a dust-drenched floor, the world's axis off kilter, as wrong as everything else, tipped and capsized by seething Light, troublesome effulgence seeking to thwart him, to keep him storm tossed forever, unable to _obey._ He whimpered. It wasn't _right! He couldn't do that!_

_Freedom for Phindar. Death for Phindar. _ The voice retraced its blazing channels, drilled deeper, throbbed harder, tore into exposed thought as a predator sinks teeth into newly-felled meat. He gripped the 'saber hilt. _No._

_Yes._ He retched, and scrambled upright, the wall a steady guide, solid and straight, a path leading to destruction, to the end of pain. He stumbled onward, the Light surging against him with each step, pummeling at his core, wringing hot damp out of every pore.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He was a servant of Light. He had taken an oath to that effect, sometime, a long time ago, before the Voice and Phindar, the machine, the guards, Syndicat, the awful droid, the pain and the nerve-splitting, blinding agony. A door. Light warped about it, sealing it. He fell against the cold panel, panting.

The Light took on a Voice of its own, and now there were two, one flaring like liquid fire in his veins, _obey obey obey; _the other now calling out his name, outside. Just beyond. In the passage he had just crossed.

"Obi Wan!"

He tore the door open, hurt exploding into power. The pressure pistons shorted out. He did not feel the sparks bore into his arms as he pressed onward. They were nothing compared to the sparks burrowing deeper, unquenchable, into his mind, smoldering embers that could not be put out, electropulsors stabbing relentlessly inward, endless, merciless.

In the room beyond, there was a single cargo palette. And on it were neatly stacked boxes. He knew the shape. He didn't even need to read the labels, emblazoned with warning signs. Explosives. Lots of them. Enough to bring a whole building down, and more. The stored supplies for the Syndicat demolition.

The Voice in the hallway manifested itself in the doorframe, outlined in coruscating colors. Migraine bleared Light into rainbow, into bright halo.

"Padawan! Stop!"

_Do not stop. Obey. Do it. Death for Phindar._

The saber was in his hand. Its blade was green flame, its Voice a third voice, thrumming deep, a song, a lullaby, a war cry, a low musical lament, laughter compassion authority. The saber burned his hand, though he held the hilt. Light burned its way up his arm, his shoulder, down his spine, a blazing warning.

_You must not._

"I must."

"No. You are free to stop. Do not listen."

_Obey. Death for Phindar._

One sweep of the plasma blade, and the entire cache would go up, combust, blast them all to oblivion. Shouting, cheering. Gouts of fire. Thunder. Screams of despair. Peace, cessation. Renewal, renewal in everlasting fire, in nothingness.

The blade hummed low, expectant.

"Obi Wan. You are Jedi. Do not yield."

_Yield. Be renewed. Finish what has been started. Obey._

He was Jedi.

"Master!"

"I'm here. Focus, Obi Wan. The Force. What is the Force telling you?"

Light blossomed around the green blade, emanated in starbright waves, filled the room. It was luminance, sound, vital breath, beginning and end. It was pain, stern reckoning, justice and conscience searing through his flesh, setting his blood afire. It was truth, it was Self before self, life and death.

It told him to defy the Voice.

The Voice rose higher, until it frothed and seethed, corrosive, floodwaters drowning Light, swallowing it, scattering it to spattered fragments, stars in an ocean of black, faint nebula in a Void of command. Chill, and emptiness, and need, utter need, hollow compliance, defeat, renewal. The enemy of Light: Dark.

"Padawan! You must not destroy the Phindians. Hundreds will die by your hand. Do not dishonor yourself and the Order."

_Do it. Obey._

He mustn't. He couldn't.

_You will._

"No! I will _not!"_ He extinguished the blade, sank to his knees.

Dark howled. Light howled. The universe screamed louder than the roaring Phindians. Than the million-fold voice. Qui Gon - he might be shouting too. Pandemonium solidified into silence, into absolute stillness. He faced the enemy squarely. The Voice would not prevail. It would die on a Jedi's blade, cut down in its raving folly.

He shoved the hilt up against his ribs, beneath the sternum, angled upward. His hand tightened about the grip, his thumb lingered, trembling a little, over the activator switch. The Voice was powerless to stop him. Qui Gon was sinking to his knees, too, already white, ghostly, his presence blurring into the pain that pervaded all things.

The enemy was fear. Fear was carried within. The Voice was carried within. Darkness was carried within. It was so simple.

Shadow and brilliance raged around him, about this timeless moment, the eye of the storm where Fear met its match, where the Voice fell silent, where Light and Dark cancelled into preternatural balance. Within the hurricane gale, the mind-wipe droid crackled with lightning; Sentinel Shadows tore veils asunder; compulsion and pleading clashed in endless strife, clamorous rioting warfare.

Here, in the center, there was calm. The Voice shrieked its rage, the Sentinels chased it in giddying whirls, the Dark was thunderous sound, rampaging fury, signifying nothing. The enemy was within, and in his power, at his mercy, defeated.

_Give me the 'saber, Obi Wan._

Qui Gon was here, too. How was that?

_I am here because you are here. Give me the 'saber._

But he had conquered. This was his victory.

_No. I gave you my life. Now give me yours in exchange._

The howling rose, shrill, piercing, excoriating. His hand shook.

_Let it go, Padawan. Trust me._

The storm drew closer, threatening to swallow the tenuous sanctuary, implode upon its own center, destroy all mortal flesh. Closer, closer… until the sickening whirlwind was pressing in, raising hairs along his nape, down his spine, rattling teeth and spilling ice cold through marrow.

_Give me the saber. Obi Wan. Now._

But…

_Padawan. Hear me. Obey._

His fingers slackened. The hilt rolled loose, tumbled against his knees, clattered on the floor. It slithered, cautiously, away into Qui Gon's grip.

The storm crashed down on him, inexorable, and he drowned, sinking into bottomless depths, into the hells.

Something stirred into warmth against his heart, a tiny pinprick of light in the crushing, flailing fury of dark voices, screaming confusion. His rock – the river rock. He groped for it, the texture of his own tunics foreign, awkward, the cold sweat slicking his chest unfamiliar, repulsive, bloody to the touch. The rock. He grasped it, clutched at it. It burned hot, liquid hot, pain hot, molten Light.

His anchor. The storm clawed at him, flayed him alive, raked through him, over him, laughing, shrieking, beating him down with a thousand mindless voices, the Dark driving behind with a whip, a flail of lightning, the destroyer.

He was damned. He clutched at the tiny piece of starfire, the speck of Light, and threw himself upon the mercy of the Force, open without reservation, without hope or need or desire, without self, into the Center.

* * *

Qui Gon Jinn clipped his saber back upon his belt. His heart thundered a little longer, disobedient to his will, and then settled. He exhaled, moved forward two scant paces, knelt down.

"Obi Wan."

The boy was breathing. Qui Gon bent over, pressed a broad hand against his apprentice's clammy forehead. The Padawan was in a deep trance. The master's fingers trailed gently downward, found the slowest of pulses, felt for the faint rise and fall of blood beneath his touch.

Outside, the crowd cheered and cheered, heralding the end of Paxxi's speech, and the beginning of New Phindar. Music sputtered into life, echoed softly through the building's walls. Nearby, the palette of compressed explosive charges sat quietly stacked, a pyramid of destructive potential. Tomorrow, or the next day, they would be set to their proper task – the unmaking of tyranny's stronghold.

A moment ago, they had almost sent hundreds of innocents – and Qui Gon, and Obi Wan himself – to their premature deaths.

He exhaled slowly. That was a moment ago. This was now.

In the now, in the aftermath, he simply waited, as he had once before. Either the Force would restore the boy, or it would take him. But in either case, the Syndicat had lost its battle, the cruel experiment failed.

The Phindians cheered. Obi Wan lay deathly still. Qui Gon waited. And the Force stood silent witness to it all, betraying none of its secrets.

* * *

After timelessness, there was time. Awareness unfurled slowly, like a flower blossoming beneath a springtime sun, dividing into instants, succession, coherence. Self and Force were gently sundered, and there was inside and outside, thought and sensation.

Breath rose to texture the emptiness, and then blood pulsed in harmony, a river flowing, burbling, running over a laughing streambed, full of light, gathering light, rolling it in mighty boulders along its course, catching it in nets of joyful color on its glittering surface. Thoughts sparkled there, cavorted in the depths, broke the surface and disappeared again, wordless, unremembered.

And then there was true outwardness, things beyond the self. A planet spun its wedding dance about a bright sun, wheeling them all along its ordained path, gravity pulling toward the center, giving direction, ordering space into place, into here. Sweet air hung all about, invisible veils, and sound wove in and out among them, trailing comet tails of color, these things slowly, very slowly, weaving into a tapestry of substance, of shapes, of meanings.

One such meaning was a voice, a face, a solidifying presence in the Force which had not really gone, had only contracted into separateness, into difference. This difference in the Light had a name, a history, a voice. It spoke, sometimes in sounds, and sometimes in thought, in the flowing stream of awareness.

_There you are. I've been waiting a long time. Keep coming back._

Here and now twined together, twisted into a growing pattern, ever more complex, ever more defined. There was self and Force; and there was outward and inward. And now there was another distinction: part of self poured over into the outward and became flesh, while the other remained and was spirit. It was confusing, for a while. The voice that was familiar continued to speak, and soothe away the confusion, and eventually the order of things became a harmonious chord: body, mind, self, world, Force.

He opened his eyes, registering that light was not Light- not exactly. The air was cool, and musty. Gravity pulled _downward, _ telling him that he was flat on his back. The tiny rock clamped in his fist was _hot,_ making his fingers uncurl about it, offering it escape or release from bondage. Qui Gon was _himself, _ voice and face and long hair hanging over his shoulders, blue grey eyes smiling even when they meant to be stern, brown cloak pooling on the hard floor, lapping over his left arm like waves on a shore.

The Voice was gone. It had never existed.

"Master?"

The Force smiled, and he basked in it. Or perhaps that was Qui Gon. The edges of things were still a bit confused, luminous. A hand brushed over his forehead, his hair, tugged on the short braid behind his right ear.

"I had another nightmare."

Qui Gon laughed. Or perhaps that was the Force. It was difficult to tell.

"I'm afraid that was no dream," the tall man said. His voice was much like the river, smooth yet deep, flowing along, full of Light on the surface and in the depths. "Look at me."

He frowned. "It felt like a dream. A vision."

"No, that was quite real. You should say rather that your visions feel like _that. _ And you managed a deep centering trance, without any help."

"Oh." He was tired, even though he had just woken. How was that? "I had help, though."

Qui Gon was pushing him upright. Gravity _pulled, _telling him that he was now sitting, and that his limbs were very heavy, his middle strangely hollow, his muscles shaking. "How so?"

"My rock, master. I think it helped."

"Of course you do," Qui Gon agreed, smiling. He picked the rock up off the floor, shoved it into a belt pouch. "Try to stand."

He tried, but not much happened. "I'm wobbly. That's odd." Even his head was heavy, his eyelids.

The tall Jedi found that humorous, too. "I'm not staying here another minute," he declared. "Come on. There. Hold tight." In a moment, he was riding like a youngling on the tall man's back, arms draped around his neck, face resting against one broad shoulder. Qui Gon's arms hooked beneath his knees, and they were off, striding through a dark hallway, up dark stairs, into a Phindian night. Stars winked down at them; a single moon peeked over the horizon, wide-eyed at the sight. He was suddenly tired, sliding inexorably over the edge of awareness again.

"Where are we going?" he asked muzzily , wondering why it was dark, when it used to be light outside.

But he didn't hear the answer, for sleep claimed him before Qui Gon could make any reply.

* * *

"Jedi Gon! There you are, so! We thought you had disappeared, so strange! And Obawan, what is wrong with the poor chick? Here, let Duena help, here, this way, come come come, so!"

Wearily, Qui Gon carried his not inconsiderable burden through Duena's door, into the welcoming warmth of the old Phindian woman's cottage. It had been a long walk all the way from the new government center, a lonely trek through the capitol's abandoned streets. The hour must be far past midnight.

"You were waiting for us," he observed, as their kindly hostess fussed over his Padawan. "Oh, poor chick, he's all soaked through, catch his death of chill, get some clean clothes for the boy, Jedi Gon, so! And here are blankets. I do not want to know what happened – not so, I lie!"

"We are sorry to have missed the end of Paxxi's investiture," the master told her as she bustled about the tiny room. "He will make a fine governor."

"Oh, so! We all know this, true fact. Is Obawan ill? Bad effects of Renewal, so?"

Qui Gon's mouth twisted. "You might say that. Thank you Duena." He maneuvered the solicitous Phindian toward the door. "He'll be fine now. I'll speak with you in the morning."

"So! I am glad you are returned safely, no lie! And you missed the reception – you must be a wise one, Jedi Gon, true fact. I have had enough drinking and shouting for the rest of my life, so!"

"Indeed." Qui Gon smiled, and escorted her over the threshold. "Our thanks."

* * *

"So! Jedi Gon! You have missed Kaadi and Paxxi. They are off on their honeymoon, never to return… not so, I lie! But they were sorry not to say goodbye to you, so!"

Qui Gon inclined his head. "We are sorry to have missed them. But I shall send our congratulations later, by hologram."

Guerra Derida patted his stomach, which was somewhat distended from the lavish breakfast Duena had prepared. "Off on mysterious Jedi business last night, so, my friend? We thought you had gone to fight demons in the basement… not so, I lie!"

The Jedi master winced at the near-truth of his friend's jest. "Obi Wan was indisposed."

"Ah, too much party and rich food, even for a Jedi, so! I will need at least a year to recover… I do not lie! Well, maybe only a little lie, so!"

"You must find a way to speed your recovery. This will be a busy year for Phindar. Without the Syndicat, your people have much work ahead to restore your planet's resources and lifeways."

"True fact, Jedi Gon! Are you sure Obawan and you will not be staying longer? Paxxi and I could always sabotage your ship again, so!"

The Jedi held up a stern finger. "I wouldn't attempt such a thing, were I you," he warned the devious Phindian. "Or you might learn more of _mysterious Jedi business_ than you want to."

Guerra roared with amicable laughter, unfazed. "You are a terrible liar, Jedi Gon! But I will not touch your ship. Leaves tomorrow, noon hour, so! First class accommodations – not so, but spaceworthy, so, no lie! You can watch the last traces of Syndicat go up in smoke before you leave, better than anything you have seen before, true fact."

"I am sure Obi Wan will be most eager to witness that event," the tall man said grimly.

* * *

"Master. These are _not_ the trousers I was wearing. These are the older pair." Obi Wan's face was a study in mortified outrage.

Qui Gon feigned incomprehension.

"Where did these come from?" the boy demanded, as though chiding an errant Padawan of his own.

Qui Gon lifted an eyebrow. "Your bag. Where else?"

The Padawan's scowl deepened until the tall man felt sure the thin walls of the Phindina house must rumble into smoldering ruin beneath the onslaught.

He relented, a little. "I shooed Duena out of the room, lest her virgin eyes be offended."

Now the Padawan was a vivid crimson, reminiscent of _teeba_ roots. He muttered something highly unbecoming, under his breath. Qui Gon pretended not to hear. Obi Wan made a great show of dressing _himself_ in the remainder of his clothes, buckling his boots with furious placidity.

Once armored, he looked up at Qui Gon again. "Did you tell them?"

"No. There is no need."

His apprentice nodded, some of the simmering vexation melting into gratitude, or relief. Sinking dread quickly made its own appearance, rising out of some forgotten corner with redoubled vitality. "Am I… always going to be that way?"

"I don't think so," Qui Gon assured him. "Come here." He gripped the boy's upper arms. "_Freedom for Phindar,_" he said, crisply.

Nothing.

"Freedom for Phindar?" Obi Wan asked, blinking.

The Jedi master nodded, released him. "Yes. That was the trigger phrase. The Syndicat mind-wipe droid may have failed to suppress your memories, Padawan, but I'm afraid it did leave a very deep and insidious conditioning impulse."

"I tried to blow up the entire building," Obi Wan condemned himself. "I almost did."

"But you didn't. Not in the end. Nor did you take your own life, as so many of the Renewed did. I am very proud of you."

The Padawan shook his head, took a guilty step backward. "I.. I will tell the Council what I did," he said, hoarsely. "I 'm dangerous. Like the Sentinels thought."

"No. You are not. In resisting the impulse, you destroyed it. I do not think we need ever worry about it again. I think I may safely say that you are the most strong-willed, intractable, uncooperative, disobedient Padawan in the entire Order."

"Ah… thank you, master." A twisted half-smile.

Qui Gon sobered. "And, I think I may say that you are ready for Ilum."

The boy's head cam up, eyes shining with an eager fire. The Jedi master held up a hand. "At least, ready to start preparing for Ilum. We will focus upon that as one of our tasks when we return to the Temple. And when the time is ripe, we shall go to the caves of Seeking."

Obi Wan made him a deep, formal bow, and the Force chimed with approval.

* * *

"So! I cannot wait to see it!" Guerra pranced in place, head craning to gain a better view of the distant Syndicat headquarters.

Obi Wan stared gravely past the cordon, eyes tracing over the monolithic building's outline. "I wonder they don't reuse the building," he said. "Or maybe I don't."

Qui Gon watched the last of the demolition experts scurry out of the fortress' interior, hastily cramming a hard helmet on his head as he jogged to the sheltered detonation shed. A flock of birds winged by overhead, oblivious to the happenings below.

"Why do they take so long? My heart will fail me… not so!" Guerra muttered.

Another intolerable expanse of time.

The Force _snapped_; the Jedi drew in a sharp breath; and a half-second later, the Sydicat headquarters transformed to a pillar of dusty smoke, a gout of leaping fire. The thunder came after, shaking the ground beneath their feet, scattering debris sky high, flattening the dead grass and tumbled weeds beneath a rolling shockwave. The gathered crowds cheered wildly.

Guerra Derida rubbed his hands together, chortling. "A wicked explosion, just so! Goodbye Syndicat, and good riddance! Freedom for Phindar, so!"

The Phindian's glee was infectious. Obi Wan grinned back. "Freedom for Phindar," he agreed.

* * *

"Always sad to see friends go, but you have outstayed your welcome…. Not so, I lie! Heartbroken, I am, true fact." Guerra wrapped each of his two Jedi acquaintances in a suffocating hug, pounding them heartily on the back in turns.

"If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Coruscant, you must try to visit us. We are _sometimes_ on planet."

"You lie!" The Phindian snorted. "Much too busy saving the galaxy to stay home knitting, true fact! But I will look you up anyway. Jedi Temple will be glad to be honored by my visit… not so, I lie! But I will come anyway."

"So you will be traveling to Coruscant?" Obi Wan asked, hopefully.

Guerra winked at him, a broad and leering expression suitable to a sly clown. "A business man, I am becoming, so! Paxxi cannot have all the fame in this family, I do not lie. I am going to make a name for myself."

"What line of business?" Qui Gon inquired, despite his intuition that it might be better not to know.

"Property recovery services," their friend explained. "Much needed in Core worlds. Private company, no beaurocratic mumbo jumbo, just straight fees and good results, so!"

"_Unstealing?"_ Obi Wan exclaimed, indignant.

"So, my young friend! Lost and Found, Guerra Derida, sole proprietor. Make a fortune, spend it all on high living… not so, I lie! Paxxi and Kaadi, they are needing a rich uncle for all the children, so! I am getting a head start."

Qui Gon bowed. "We wish you much luck in your endeavor, Guerra. May the Force be with you."

The Phindian beamed. "So! And you, Jedi Gon! Obawan! Farewell!"

The transport, humble as it was, awaited. Qui Gon laid an arm across his student's shoulders and gently streered him up the rickety boarding ramp.

"You just gave a formal benediction to Guerra's criminal undertakings," Obi Wan accused his mentor when they were out of earshot.

"Did I?' the Jedi master replied, blandly. "I didn't notice."

"Master! You must be more mindful."

"Must I? Where is your river stone, Padawan?"

The boy frowned, searched through his inner tunic pocket, withdrew and empty hand. His face betrayed fleeting regret. "I don't know," he admitted. "I must have dropped it." His eyes widened, and his shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry, master."

"You must be more mindful, my Padawan," the tall man smiled, fishing the tiny object out of his belt pouch and returning it to its owner.

His apprentice tried hard not to display unbecoming attachment as he accepted his gift for the second time. "Yes, master."

"I won't charge you the unstealing fee this time," Qui Gon added. "I am in a generous mood."

The ramp hissed closed behind them, and the lumbering ship rose into Phindar's skies. at the end of a long hyperspace tunnel, Coruscant, and the Temple, and the Council, still awaited.


	10. Chapter 10

**Lineage II**

* * *

**Part 10: Renewal**

* * *

Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn came to the end of his considerable patience.

One large hand splayed against the wall, he sent a tendril of Force energy through the plaster and lath, the durasteel support beams, the insulating material, until he discovered the veining of wires and pipes, the circulatory system embedded in the building's walls. Carefully, delicately, he located the hot water supply pipe, and clamped the valve shut, holding it in place against the pressure of scalding liquid that cascaded down the narrow tunnel. Of course, the _cold_ water line he left untouched.

A moment later his skill was rewarded with a most undignified yelp from inside the 'fresher.

Message received.

A few minutes later his apprentice appeared, neatly groomed, and only slightly damp around the edges. Qui Gon tugged the boy's tabards into straighter lines. "The Council is expecting us; your _preening _will have to wait."

"Yes, master," the Padawan responded churlishly, following him out the door. "I would hardly describe cleanliness as _preening."_

They made for the nearest swift tube. "You must have been _cleaning_ some very obscure and interesting places," the tall master observed dryly.

He caught the echo of a sullen riposte across their bond. "Mind your thoughts or we shall set you to cleaning other things," he warned.

Disgruntled exhalation. They stepped out at the base of the south spire. "I'm sorry, master. But I didn't even have time to shave."

What? Qui Gon peered at his young charge closely. After a moment's critical inspection , he finally saw the first pathetic hints of red-gold down on upper lip and chin. "Ah," he assured the sulking boy, with a gentle shake of the head. "Nobody will notice."

Obi Wan swept his wounded dignity under a façade of cold indifference and stalked into the lift ahead of him. Qui Gon chuckled quietly to himself all the way up to the Council chamber.

* * *

Mace was in one of his moods. Or perhaps that was just his Council-member face. Qui Gon couldn't be sure; the Korun Jedi was famously inscrutable, even to those who had grown up with him since infancy.

"I recall informing you that your presence was required here on Coruscant _before_ you left for Phindar," he growled, fingers steepled into mirrored ramparts. "If you recall, Master Jinn."

Qui Gon noted the formality. He made sure to infuse a little extra cool civility in his short bow. "Indeed," he concurred. "I recall that the Council wished me to cooperate with the Sentinels' investigation of the Syndicat mind-wipe droid."

Adi Gallia was watching his back with an amused anticipation. He felt Obi Wan stir beside him, doubtlessly interpreting Adi's regard as _predatory._ He subtly brushed one arm against the Padawan's cloak sleeve, reining his attention back to the central issue.

"You recall correctly," Mace replied, icy. "Would you care to explain your subsequent actions?'

Yoda's eyes were hooded, neutrally observing. The ancient Jedi knew better than to stand between two clashing krayt dragons during a territorial dispute. That, or he secretly enjoyed the spectacle. One never knew, with Yoda.

"Yes." Qui Gon swept his glaze around the entire chamber, including the whole circle of masters in his reply. "My Padawan and I proceeded to Phindar, to cooperate in the Sentinels' investigation."

"Explain," Ki Adi Mundi prompted him, conical head tilting back slightly, watery blue eyes meeting those of Yarael Poof, behind Qui Gon's back.

"My masters," Qui Gon blithely addressed the entire room, "The Sentinels wished to investigate the possibility of a wider network behind the Phindian Syndicat's mind-wipe technology. They also wished to determine the precise nature of that technology's effects upon my Padawan. While on Phindar, Obi Wan and I were able to make significant progress in both these inquiries."

"Indeed?" Mace said, voice deepening to a dubious baritone. "Padawan Kenobi."

Obi Wan started but looked up expectantly. Seldom was an apprentice called upon to speak in a Council report such as this. "Yes, Master."

"Enlighten the Council about these researches you completed."

Qui Gon's eyes narrowed. So Mace thought to imbalance him by shifting the pressure of justification to Obi Wan? Not likely. He rocked back on his heels and lifted his chin.

ObI Wan took a tentative step forward, lifted his own chin in unconscious synchrony. No doubt the gesture was not lost on the Council. Qui Gon gazed blandly at Mace, who stared expressionlessly back at him, dark eyes limpid with intelligence.

"Yes, Master," the Padawan began. "While on Phindar, Master Jinn was able to infiltrate the abandoned Syndicate headquarters – before it was demolished. When we compared the records regarding their use fo mind-wipe technology on Phindian citizenry with Telosian governmental research grants –"

"Wait a moment," Mace intervened. "How did you obtain the latter?"

Obi Wan glanced over his shoulder at Qui Gon.

"I have cultivated well-placed contacts over the years," he informed the Council with a short bow of the head.

"Continue," Mace commanded.

"We found a connection between the Syndicat's researches into behavioral conditioning techniques, and a laboratory foundation called Arbor Biogenetics, located beyond Republic jurisdiction. This company appears to be devoted exclusively to neurological and chromosomal manipulation, and received massive grants from Telos over the last three years."

A stunned silence.

"Impressive," Yoda grunted. "Out of confusion, clarity. A new path for our investigation to follow. If present on Phindar you had not been, lost this connection would have been."

"Yes, master." Obi Wan waited, now eager to melt back into the anonymity provided by Qui Gon's shadow. But Mace was not finished with him.

"And what of yourself? You feel you have discovered some lingering effect of the Phindian technology on your own mind?"

The Padawan inhaled deeply. His gaze shifted away from Mace Windu, to that of Yoda. The ancient one propped his chin atop his hands, folded over his gnarled stick. Two green ears dipped in subtle encouragement.

A wave of shame eddied in the Force, and rolled onward into infinity. Obi Wan released his pent-up breath. "Yes. Though I retained all my memories after the… procedure, it became clear on Phindar that the machine _had _ implanted a …a conditioning impulse, master. Whenever I heard a ceratin trigger phrase, I felt a compulsion to act in a manner that would destroy the new Phindian peace. It was difficult to resist."

Mace leaned forward. "You think this _conditioning_ is no longer active?"

The Padawan hesitated, but his bearing remained confident. "No, master," he answered, quietly. "There was a moment, when I was overcome. I nearly … I almost blew up an entire building, and hundreds of Phindians… because of the compulsion. " He stopped, as his voice quavered.

The Council waited patiently.

"I would have slain innocents, masters," the boy continued, when he had reasserted control. "I came very close to doing so. But in the end, I didn't. And after that, I have not experienced any effects at all. Master Jinn and I tried to trigger the impulse several times during the return transit. We … I think it has been eradicated."

"By the Force?" Mace inquired.

The Padawan nodded, unable to speak, and the assembly overlooked the slight breach of protocol.

There was a heavy silence as the Council weighed these matters. Obi Wan discreetly stepped back, retiring to his customary position slightly behind Qui Gon. He deftly passed one wide cloak sleeve over his face, and subsided into a stony reserve.

"As usual, Qui Gon, you've managed to turn defiance into a positive outcome," Mace rumbled. He might have been amused; or he might have been genuinely vexed. "You will make a full and detailed report on all your findings to Master Dooku. In person."

Qui Gon chafed at the last unnecessary qualification, but accepted that this was a lenient sentence. He bowed curtly. "Naturally."

"Padawan Kenobi. We cannot send you out in the field again until we are certain you are indeed whole and sound, mentally. I'm sure you understand this. We need to verify that you are no longer harboring any hidden damage."

Obi Wan's pang of distress stained the Force with a murky cloud. Qui Gon turned his head sharply, to meet the boy's gaze evenly. _Courage. _

"With respect, " Qui Gon insisted. "That needs to be done with my oversight and permission."

Mace skewered him with a burning look, but he ignored it.

"Your _permission_ do you grant me?" Yoda demanded, annoyance girding his age-roughened voice. "Make certain I will." His luminous eyes slid sideways to the younger Jedi's face. "Gently, young one. Master Yoda will not harm you."

Obi Wan bowed his gratitude. Qui Gon released his building tension into the Force. They had not escaped wholly without censure or burden; yet they had nothing to complain of.

* * *

"Qui Gon."

Standing, Qui Gon Jinn had the advantage of height. He delayed sitting another minute. "The Council has requested that I make a full report to you, concerning my mission to Phindar."

Yan Dooku gestured to the unoccupied chair. Here, sequestered in a small alcove within the Archives' solemn enclave, they were ensconced in successive layers of walls, of secrecy, of quiet veiling. Footfalls fell outside, in the silent aisles of holobooks. Dooku waved the door shut.

"Tell me. Did you pre-empt the Sentinels again?'

Qui Gon sat, at last, his frame too large for the chair's contours. He felt like a youngling that had outgrown the playroom furniture, slightly out of place. "Phindar's operations were funded by Telos, via an independent research laboratory called Arbor Biogentic Foundation."

Dooku's brows furrowed. "I see you are as cavalier with mission protocol as ever," he observed trenchantly.

"The information is reliable," Qui Gon retorted. "I am sure the Sentinels can make good use of it."

"And you dragged that boy of yours into the midst of strife, against my recommendation.'

"Obi Wan handled himself well. And he overcame deeply implanted mind control, with the aid of the Force."

Dooku's grey eyes slid assessingly over his former Padawan. "That is… impressive," he admitted. "But do not forget that you risked the lives of many by taking him anywhere near Phindar. He ought to have been quarantined here at the Temple. Under the observation of healers, or one of the Shadows. Do not make that face at me, Qui Gon – I am well aware of our difference of perspective where such things are concerned. But one day your irresponsibility will lead to disaster. If indeed we are to believe that it has not already."

The younger man stiffened, old scars ripped open by the well-chosen strike, He betrayed no pain. "I submit myself to the judgment of the Force."

"And nothing else," Dooku added, caustically. "You are a brave man, my old Padawan."

Qui Gon clenched his jaw. "I hope the Sentinels will make good use of our discovery," he said. "If there is anything I can do to help, my resources are at your disposal."

The older master's mouth curved in a faintly sardonic smile. "Ah. You wish to unburden your conscience? I thought you were above judgment. Let the Sentinels clean up your mess, Qui Gon; Du Crion and his aspirations are no longer your burden to bear."

"With respect, I do not think that is true."

Dooku stood; and Qui Gon mirrored the gesture.

"Have a care, Qui Gon. You have many difficult duties to fulfill, without rushing in where angels fear to tread."

And with that most civilized of insults, Yan Dooku took his elegant leave, without once looking back.

* * *

"Come in, come in, young one. Bite you, I will not."

Master Yoda's private rooms were larger than most the residential apartments; the Grand Master had a separate antechamber in which to entertain visitors, a spacious room replete with the luxury of a high window. The slatted blinds were programmed to filter light to a comfortable, meditative dusking. They adjusted their angle with the rising sun, casting beams of gold upon the high ceiling, dusting the worn floor with a pale veneer of light. In the haze, Obi Wan could see countless scratch marks and dents banged into the once-smooth surface, scars left by Yoda's gimer stick as he paced the centuries away.

"Sit down, youngling. Afraid of Master Yoda before , you have never been. How changed have I?"

He sat, stomach flipping queasily. "I'm sorry, master. You haven't changed."

The ancient one shuffled closer to him, peered into his face. "Then changed, you have. Fear. Transform the world around us it does. Bends things to its own image."

He kept his breathing steady, centered. "Yes, master."

"Think you that painful this must be, hm."

"The Shadows –"

"Hmmph. Much to learn Dooku still has. " Yoda waved a clawed hand at him. "A child is he, in the true Force. Old Yoda knows better ways. Wiped Dooku's nose for him, I did, when small he was."

Obi Wan remembered his manners and clamped his mouth shut.

"Ready are you?"

His heart hammered, treacherously. "I- yes. But… does this need to be another mind probe? Isn't there another way?"

"Hm. Ready you are not."

"I'm sorry, master." He bowed his head, feeling heat rise in his cheeks.

But Yoda did not seem perturbed. He clambered onto the cushion opposite and settled in companionably, for a long wait. "Perhaps talk to me instead, you should. Chat, we will have, hm?"

"Yes, master." He had to admit the idea was far more appealing than the alternative.

"Show me this river stone, you will. Heard much about it, I have. Believe not, do I, that Force-sensitive it truly is."

Obi Wan pulled the tiny thing out of its hiding place. "But it is, master! Here; look for yourself. If you touch the Force, the stone will grow warm in your hand." Eagerly, he deposited the rock in Yoda's outstretched palm.

The ancient Jedi held it delicately between his blunt claws. "Beautiful it is," he pronounced. His eyes closed, and he grumbled quietly to himself for a few moments. His ears drooped. "Hummph!" he snorted. "Nothing happens. Trick, you have played on me. Nothing but a pretty rock, is this."

"No, master, I would never do such a thing! It's special."

Yoda handed the stone back to him. "Show me then, if so certain you are. Make it warm."

He did. The moment his fingers closed round it, the stone warmed to his touch, as though it were alive. And more. It did not only grow warm in his hand, but it chimed faintly in the Force, a tuning fork resonating with some distant memory, a lovely melody carried on the radiant softness flowing from the rock… from a distant Center… His eyelids drooped.

"Master… you did something…"

"I?" Yoda wheezed. "Nothing, did I . Listen to your stone, you should."

He did, and soon enough he was lost in the images which seemed to swell and glimmer within the stone, as rainbow banners and curved reflections are trapped, ephemerally, within a bubble's perfect sphere. To his astonishment, the panoply of soft echoes were all familiar, glimpses and snippets of his own memories, a kaleidoscope of voices and faces and feelings, drifting gently on the currents of a River, a burbling stream of Light. It was a familiar stream, and he floated down its scintillating length, from present to past and back again, aware only dimly that Yoda seemed to be alongside him, enjoying it as much as he did, quietly observing every moment as it passed.

Eventually, the River widened into a shallow sea and then lapped onto shore, nudging his mind back to sensory reality. He opened his eyes, and the stone still lay on his open palm, cool to the touch but just as beautiful as ever.

Master Yoda seemed to be meditating. Or perhaps he was asleep. Obi Wan carefully placed the river stone back in its pocket and wondered whether it would be rude to awaken the ancient master from his trance, or slumber – whichever it was.

He was saved the difficult decision by Yoda himself. When the green-gold eyes slowly opened, they were full of a wisdom polished smooth by time and the flowing currents of the Force, much like the rock.

"I think I'm ready now, master," Obi Wan told him.

The ancient Jedi chortled, deep in his throat. "Done it is."

He blinked. "I…what?"

Yoda wheezed and chuckled, slid off his cushion and onto the floor, grunting as he leaned his weight on the sturdy stick. "Whole and sound you are. Fret not."

That was all? But…

"Foolish to face present from perspective of past, Obi Wan. Told you already: know more than our Sentinels, I do. Now off you go. Hm. Much to do, you have. Study, Practice. Meditate. Grow strong, deep in Force."

"Yes, master." He was bowing and exiting before the reality had sunk in. And only after he was halfway down the corridor did it occur to him that he had not thanked the ancient master.

But he was fairly certain that Yoda would understand, anyway.

* * *

"You're back."

"As you can see." He stepped aside, gracefully.

Tahl passed between his left side and the doorframe, brushing just between, touching neither. The door slid closed.

"Where's your shadow?"

"Sparring. I have a few hours' peace."

Tahl sat at the low table, her cloak pooling about her slender frame, a waterfall of soft folds. "It's my honor to shatter the tranquility. How was the wedding?"

"I brought you a souvenir. Something of academic interest."

Tahl waited patiently, her golden eyes following his every move as he disappeared to fetch the gift from the tiny conservator in its kitchen alcove.

"I hope it handles the wear and tear of travel better than you do," she remarked archly.

Qui Gon set the delicacy before her, eyes smiling. "Ch'xlatl. It was Obi Wan's idea."

"Of course it was."

They partook of it together, making of its enjoyment a slow dance, a kata, a silent ceremony.

And when it was done, they parted ways again.

* * *

Obi Wan threw his soiled tunic into the laundry bin, wiped his face with a towel. It had been good to spar again, although many of his age-mates were not in the Temple at present. No Garen, no Reeft, not even Bruck Chun. Siri Tachi had been banned from the salles for a month , much to his disappointment. He had been forced to challenge older Padawans, and the resulting playful combat had been… satisfying.

Someone cleared his throat in the doorway beyond. He turned, startled by the intruder whom, once again, he had failed to sense in the Force.

"Master Dooku!" A bow covered his momentary lack of composure. He hastened to pull a fresh tunic into place, fingers fumbling with the ties.

"Tonight's session was a rare spectacle of carnage," Dooku observed, leaning in the doorframe, effectively blocking the exit. "Tell me, why Ataru?"

They were alone; the others had hurried on their way, and Obi Wan – out of respect for their seniority – had taken the last turn in the showers. "It was chosen for me by the swordsmasters," he replied, truthfully. As the style of any initiate his age had been.

Dooku studied him up and down. "You are a born master of Makashi," he declared. "A pity the form is out of vogue. Of course, I would be honored to teach you."

This was no ordinary offer. Dooku had taught only a handful in five decades. Even Qui Gon had been excluded from the finer points of tutelage. His skin crawled. "I am honored by your attention, master," he answered carefully. "I do not think I am worthy of such high regard. But thank you."

A black and silver brow rose, and Dooku continued to idly survey him. He shifted, pressed his lips together thoughtfully. "I wonder," he said at last. "Your performance on Phindar was extraordinary, Padawan. Have you ever considered that the Force may be calling you to walk the path of a Shadow?"

"No, I have not." the words slipped out with more emphatic denial than he intended. Breathe. Steady.

Dooku saw too much. "Ah. You still smart from our initial encounter. It was necessary, young one. Do not resent that which causes pain. Some such things are a path to greater strength."

"Yes, Master Dooku." How he longed to escape.

"Qui Gon has enthralled you with his charismatic… interpretation… of the Code, I see. Still, you are young. Should you ever lose your way, Kenobi, I hope you will not hesitate to turn to me for help. I have a vested interest in your success. After all, you are the Padawan of my own Learner."

There was no evasion possible. "I am grateful for your concern," he said, bowing again. Suddenly, he was exhausted, his exertions apparently having wrung every ounce of vitality from his limbs.

"Kneel," Dooku commanded.

Obi Wan did not want his formal blessing. But one did not refuse a _master. _ Not Qui Gon's former master. Not Yan Dooku. He sank to one knee, flinched a little when the older man's hand settled lightly on his head.

"May the Force be with you, Obi Wan Kenobi," Dooku intoned.

When he had gone, the changing room seemed chill. Obi Wan hurried back to his own quarters, and Qui Gon.

* * *

"Master?"

Qui Gon grasped his chin and tilted his head back. "What's wrong?"

A Padawan owed his teacher absolute honesty. "I.. nothing. Master Dooku."

Qui Gons' eyebrow rose. "Which is it? Master Dooku or nothing?"

"Do you think I would best serve the Force by being a Shadow?"

The tall man released him, sighed. "No, I do not. Pay no heed to the suggestions of others, on that account. Your heart is a reliable guide in the matter of destiny. Do you feel drawn to that path?"

"No. I feel nothing about it." Much as he could not feel Dooku in the Force, not when the mysterious and stern master was shielding, blending into the gap between the real and the possible. "It's closed to me."

Qui Gon led the way out onto their small balcony. The evening breeze was laden with pollution; it lay in a thick mantle over the horizon, muffling the sunset in suffocating folds of vermillion and orange. "Amazing," he quipped. "A lacuna in my Padawan's omniscience."

They leaned on the railing. Air traffic buzzed on its endless way. The day bled sullenly into night. "Master?"

Qui Gon turned to his apprentice, waited.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

Obi Wan shrugged, abruptly shy. The tall man's arm went round his shoulders, pulling him closer. Smog-drenched air blasted against them; they coughed a little in unison. "It's not pretty tonight, master."

"No," he agreed ruefully. "The industrial sector is scheduled for a controlled waste burn. But the Living Force is still here, even beneath the ugliness."

"Yes, master," the boy coughed. The radiance faded, leaving only hundreds of distant beacon fires on the hard-edged horizon, the flickering garbage pyres in the manufacturing district.

"Tomorrow," Qui Gon promised, "We will begin preparing for Ilum. And whatever else the future may hold for us."

"Yes, master, I am ready."

"I know."

END BOOK II


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